


Life's But A Walking Shadow

by PerlogAnnwyl



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: A1Z26, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Emotional Manipulation, Family, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Magic, Major Character Injury, Poison, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vampire AU, Vigenère, but he gets better!, caesar +3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2019-10-07 10:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17364179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerlogAnnwyl/pseuds/PerlogAnnwyl
Summary: Musical prodigy, Miguel Rivera chafes against his family’s music ban. It makes his school and home life miserable, especially when all he wants to do is play music like his hero Ernesto de la Cruz.One day, he comes three fotos of the same man at the same age, all taken across 70 years. This discovery pushes Miguel onto a path that just might lead him to several long hidden truths, his hero and to a chance of healing his family.Will his discovery bring music back to his family? Or will it curse him to a life in the shadows?It’s the vampire AU.





	1. Prologue:  Out, Out, brief candle!

**Author's Note:**

> For realsies this AU has been in production since March. This is my first fic on Ao3, and in the Coco fandom. I really hope you enjoy it. This fic at times has been a labour of love pushing me through dark days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About this prologue: This is the darkest regarding injuries and blood, but I have put asterisks where you can skip if you really want. If you get grossed out before then, then this prologue can be skipped. 
> 
> Trigger Warning: Blood is shown in this chapter but, Injuries to a child (but I tried to make be vague but if you, and attempted murder ...But it’s ok, he gets better kind of?
> 
> _”9 23-1-14-20 20-15 11-14-15-23 20-8-5 20-18-21-20-8. 20-5-12-12 13-5 5-22-5-18-25-20-8-9-14-7.”_   
>  _“Rn, L'p jrlqj wr vwduw zlwk…_

He followed the insistent Xolo dog as it scampered through the dark, narrow, grimy, spider web of alleyways that made up the backstreets of Santa Cecilia. When they had set off, they had the dying light of the sun to guide them, though now the back streets were lit only by the faintest of the sun’s glowing embers. Now the light cast ominous shadows on the walls like they were walking down, and down into hell itself.

 

The creature ran across a busy, well lit street, accidentally scattering some marigold petals, slicing through the pathway like a knife. An irritated woman in full  _ calavera _ makeup holding a large basket, yelled at him. 

 

The smell of traditional and modern festival foods mixed together into a strange sweet and spicy concoction that permeated the air. However this didn’t quite mask the delicious smell of blood underneath.

 

The creature grimaced at his own nature, disgusted that his mouth almost salivated at the smell.

 

Far away, he could hear the jubilant cheering and laughter of the festival in the old mariachi plaza. Somewhere else in town, a terrified, frantic family were crying out desperately for a missing boy. Somewhere in the older parts of town, he heard a terrified scream. It was all background noise to him. After nearly a century, the creature was used to the audible emotional dissonance of the large town. There was always someone crying, there was always someone laughing. Life didn’t stop, because yours had.

 

The dog had found him while he had been playing a round of sevens  with Marianna. At first, he had been irritated when the dog had interrupted him, as the racket the dog had made was enough to raise the dead. However, quickly this irritation became curiosity and concern, as the dog kept pulling, and pulling, insistently on his pant leg. The dog had never looked this desperate before.

 

The Xolo dog had found him a few years prior, and had become a near constant companion in his suffering. The dog wouldn’t leave him alone, unless his other owner was around. The creature knew nothing about the dog’s other owner, except he was human, alive and young --a child, young enough to ask questions without shame. The creature made a point of leaving whenever the other owner’s scent grew strong enough to be within 250ft. 

 

When the dog was around the creature, it liked to curl up close to The Creature. It had no preference on available body part. The Creature had tried to get the dog to leave, both naturally or otherwise. Except either it was somehow immune to the thrall, or simply too stupid. Most of the time, the dog came and bothered him for attention, playtime or food.

 

It had been a month into The Creature’s acquaintance with the dog, when he had conceded and given him a scrap of meat.

 

As The creature ran with the dog through the streets, concern started to tickle at his brain. The dog had never tried to take him anywhere before. He only hoped that the dog hadn’t acted like a cat, and bringing him to something it had killed. Fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case; as the dog wound through the back streets of Santa Cecilia, it would occasionally sniff the ground, as though following something. Was it tracking something? Why did the dog need him?

 

To his concern, the creature was increasingly aware that they were getting nearer, and nearer,  _ his _ territory. He knew that if he was found near here... Things for him could get very, very bad, really fast. 

Suddenly, at the end of an alleyway which opened up onto the old plaza, the dog stopped. It looked up, and started barking.

 

The creature rushed forward, and clamped his hands over the stupid dog’s mouth.

 

“No! Bad dog! Shush!” He hissed.

 

The dog wriggled his mouth free again. He looked up at the wall at the back of the plaza  _ which was the boundaries to his property, drat! _

 

The dog began to bark again. This time he looked up. He swore that his blood ran colder than before. The Creature held onto the dog head, if only so he didn’t dash forward himself. He no longer cared to quieten the barking dog.

 

High, high up the wall was  _ him  _ in his white charro suit.  _ He _ hadn’t noticed the creature, or the dog, in the plaza below. However, he didn’t look very happy.  _ His _ face was twisted in a vicious snarl, with spittle flying from his sharpened canines. The furious scowl immediately brought back too many unpleasant memories for the creature, and he subconsciously clutched at his abdomen. Despite his fear of  _ the man _ who had once been his best friend, that wasn’t what scared him.

 

In  _ his hand _ , which was stretched far over the wall, was a small boy. The boy was being held by his hooded jacket collar. The boy couldn’t be older than a young teenager. He was still so very painfully alive, his tiny heart beating like a small mouse caught in a trap. His fresh blood flowing faster through his body. His fear was radiating from him. The boy wore a red hooded jacket, dirt stained jeans, black boots and a white vest. 

 

The scent of the boy’s boots reminded the creature of his daughter’s home, and he was sure that he had seen this boy around her house, once or twice. Maybe he was the child of a neighbour? He hoped he was. The boy was crying now, confused and he kept alternating between pleading for his life, and insulting  _ him _ for all he was worth.

 

The Creature’s cold blood boiled in fury,  _ he _ had destroyed him enough, but apparently  _ he _ wanted to scare little boys too. Did  _ that man _ ’s cruelty know any boundaries? There wasn’t a scrap of decency in  _ that man _ .  _ He truly was a monster _ .

 

 _The_ _monster_ said something to the boy, and put him on top of the wall.

 

The creature in the square let out a shaky breath, he hadn’t realised he had been holding. He had been so worried that he was going to-

 

A white suit clad arm appeared, and pushed the boy of the wall.

 

He fell,

 

Down,

  
  


Down,

  
  


And down.

  
  
  
  


There was a sickening crunch.

  
  


Numbly, the creature was aware he had let go of the dog’s head.

 

_ He _ had actually killed a child.

 

Whimpering, the Xolo dog ran to the boy.

 

He had left  _ him _ alone with his daughter.

 

The dog licked the dead boy’s face. Then it whined and pawed at the boy. The Creature was about to shout at the dog, and tell it off for attempting to disturb the dead, when he noticed the boy was breathing.

 

A noise from above, laughter, snapped him out of his horror.  _ He _ was looking down at the desperate dog.  _ He _ laughed once more, turned away and left the boy to die.

 

The creature stayed hidden in the shadows, hoping that  _ that monster _ wouldn’t look down again, and smell him. _ He _ didn’t. In fact,  _ his scent _ became fainter as he walked away.

 

After thirty seconds, the creature dashed to the small boy.

 

Before he even reached the boy, he could smell blood. Briefly his bloodlust overcame his brain, and all he wanted was to sample some of the boy’s delicious, fresh, blood. Instinctively, his canines extended, and his protesting thoughts faded to the back of his mind.

 

_ It would be so easy to thrall the boy, and take a small taste of that delightful blood. It was so tempting. He hadn’t eaten in a while, because sometimes he was foolish and didn’t like to drink the sweet red nectar. Now food had literally fallen from the sky, delicious and fresh. The blood smelled very good. The boy’s blood was so, so fresh, so good, so fresh- _

 

His brain and common sense yanked control away from his instincts. This boy didn’t have the time for him to fight the urge to drink his blood. He needed to act fast. This boy was dying. In his mind’s eye he saw the boy’s body bounce, once again, on the plaza’s cobblestone floor.

 

*

 

He looked at the boy, and gathered as much as he could from his senses, while fighting the bloodlust in his head. The boy was still very young, either twelve or thirteen. When the boy had fallen he had screamed, and his voice still had a child’s lilt to it. His face was still youthful and round, unblemished from the trauma that life could throw at you. It took him a moment, but he matched the boy’s scent with the same one that clung to the Xolo dog, confirming the boy was the dog’s other owner. 

 

His breaths were coming out it shallow pained attempts -there was an abnormally strong smell of blood coming from the boy’s mouth. He looked like a baby bird that had fallen from his nest.  His neck was twisted at a wrong angle no doubt his back or neck was broken. Also his shoulder was dislocated, and one of his legs was broken.

 

*

 

Immediately, the creature felt terrible. The boy was but a baby to him. He had been going to drink the boy’s precious blood. The boy’s face stirred an image of another, much younger child in his head.

 

He purposefully swallowed his bile. If he threw up here,  _ he _ would be able to smell it, and track him down. That would be bad for him, the boy and the dog.

 

The fall hadn’t killed the boy. However, it was clear to him that if he left the boy alone, he would die. That didn’t settle well with him, but what choice did he have? If he tried to run the boy to a hospital who knows what damage he’d do. If he called an ambulance, they might not arrive in time.

 

Then, unwarranted, a thought popped up in his mind. It was a stupid idea.

 

_ He could always turn him. _

 

A cold pinch of fear entered his brain. He had never turned anyone before, but he did know how to do it. Would he be able to do it without succumbing to the urge to feed? Would it work? It could just kill the boy faster. What about the boy’s family? They’d be worried if he never came home, or worse what if he went home, and hurt them accidentally. Could he live with himself if that happened? What if the boy felt terrible afterwards, and hated him?

 

However, there was very few choices that could save the kid at this point. The boy’s breathing was getting shallower and shallower: he was running out of time.

 

The creature shook his head, trying to shake out the insane thought. This boy could only be thirteen at most, he should have his whole life ahead. He shouldn’t have to face a choice like this, or worse be unable to decide leaving the choice in the hands of someone like him.

 

The creature glanced around, there was no one else around. The boy was running out of time, out of options. He had to decide, whether this kid ‘lived’, or died.

 

The creature decided that despite this being a no-win scenario, he couldn’t live with himself if the boy died, because of him. He stepped forward, and kneeled down next to the boy.

 

Gently, he swept the boy’s hair of his forehead. Back when he had been alive, and home and safe, and the things that haunted the night were just nightmares, he had done the same for his little girl.

 

_ Could he actually do this? _

 

The boy let out pained whimper, which steeled his nerves.

 

_ The boy  _ **_needed_ ** _ him to do this. _

 

The upside of living for a long time is that you came across a variety of people, such as doctors. That’s how the creature learned if you wanted an intravenous injection to work quickly, you had a choice of neck, upper arm/ shoulders and the inside of his elbow.

 

The creature didn’t really want to touch the boy’s neck. He feared if he did, he could kill him, so he had a choice of arm or shoulder. Deciding closer to the heart was better, he shuffled around the boy until he was near his left shoulder.

 

He quickly pulled down the arm of the boy’s hooded jacket, and picked up his arm, studying it for a vein. He noticed one on the side of the upper arm, only showing up faintly against his skin.

 

The boy whimpered in pain. The creature swallowed in disgust at what he was about to do.

 

However uncomfortable he felt, it didn’t mean it needed to be uncomfortable for the boy. He grimaced, and figured that decent society would agree that if he thralled the kid now, it would cause more good than harm, and alleviate some of the boy’s pain.

 

“ _ ¿Oye Chamaco? _ I know you can’t exactly agree to what I’m about to do, but it’ll stop the pain, s í ?  _ Lo siento. _ ” He said to the dying child.

 

Grimacing, he ignored the unpleasant memories thralling brought to him.

 

He hummed quiet tune, enthralling the child away from his pain. Once again, he had to swallow bile, but this time at the haunting phantom memories in his mind.

 

The creature was a vampire, he had to get use to this again… eventually.

 

Shaking, he let his fangs sharpen again. He opened his eyes, and focused on the boy’s vein. Carefully, he brought his mouth onto the boy’s arm, and bit down.

 

The vampire could taste the kid’s blood in his mouth. He resisted every urge he had, so that he didn’t drink more than he needed to. He held his fangs inside the vein for a minute, before removing them carefully.

 

He knew he had started to cry. He didn’t want to do this, but he didn’t want the kid to die either. In his head, the memories of enthralling people and biting their neck for blood made him want to vomit. His proximity to  _ his house _ terrified the man, dredging up many other memories.

 

The child flailed in his arms, as his body going into shock. The vampire gently shushed the barely conscious child.

 

Carefully, the vampire spat on the two puncture marks on the boy’s upper arm, which closed the wounds up spectacularly fast. They’d scar of course, they always did. He then glanced down at the side of his own elbow, where two similar marks were

 

Wincing, he scratched from the side of his right hand, down to the joint on his wrist.

 

It took a moment, and some fist clenching, but blood welled up alongside his hand. He then guided his hand to the kid’s mouth. He clenched his fist, so that enough blood would reach the side of his hand, and go into the boy’s mouth.

 

It was obvious that the boy wouldn’t consciously swallow the blood on his own, so the vampire desperately pressed the suggestion onto the boy’s subconscious enthralled state.

 

_ Drink Chamaco. Please, drink. You’ll die if you don’t. When you come to, I’ll explain everything! I don’t want you to die. Please, drink! Please, you can’t die. I promise, I will do everything I can to fix this! Please, please, I can’t let you die. Please little one. _

 

The vampire sighed in relief, when the boy’s adam’s apple moved swallowing the vampire’s tainted blood.

 

While the preliminary transformation took place, he sat next to the boy. To ward from the cold, he brought his knees up to his chest. The xolo dog lay the other side of the boy, pressing his back against the child.

 

After a while the vampire gently combed his right hand through the boy’s damp hair, like he had with his daughter. He hadn’t let go of the boy’s hand, which was still in his left hand from the arm inspection. He clung to the child’s immobile fingers.

 

The vampire could only wait, and hope. He had done everything he could to help the boy. It was the waiting that was always the worst. The vampire knew he was painfully exposed, and vulnerable should anyone decide to harm the boy. The air in the plaza seemed colder than normal. With his right hand, he pulled his waistcoat tighter around his middle. He glanced down at the recuperating boy next to him. He didn’t have a coat that he could put over the boy, and was still cautious about his neck, so instead he shuffled closer to him. After a moment, he zipped the hooded jacket up, and rubbed the boy’s arms, and hands, in an attempt to keep the boy warm.

 

When he was done, he continued to comb the boy’s hair with his hand.

 

The Vampire whispered any comfort he could possibly give this broken, suffering child. He told him about his daughter, his wife and his music. He even sung gentle tunes to the boy. He even sang his daughter’s song, and it did nothing.

 

He had removed the suggestive properties of the thrall as soon as the boy had drunk. He slowly removed the rest so that the child didn’t go into shock from any pain he was in. The vampire apologised to the unconscious boy the entire time.

 

He was painfully aware of how he was acting towards the unconscious child. He knew there was something little bit insidious about a monster like him, comforting a small, dying, lost, boy. However, a part of him felt more at home, looking after the boy, than he had felt in a long time. He was surprised he still knew how to, and how quickly his old paternal instincts kicked in. He reflected on how, according to vampire societal constructs, the boy could be called his now, he had been the one who turned him into a vampire. A part of himself hated that: the kid had a family; not that he could go home of course. Another, guilty, larger than he would admit, part of himself revelled in getting a second chance, if only briefly. He was under no delusions, this kid was going to hate him for what he had done. Nonetheless, before then if anyone hurt the boy, they would see how truly terrible the vampire was prepared to be.

 

For half an hour there was no visible improvements. That’s when the vampire noticed that the boy’s resting heart rate had gone down to 20bpm, and his body temperature had dropped by quite a few degree. For a few seconds he thought the kid was dying again, and touched the boy’s cheek in panic. Then he realised that the boy’s breathing had got a lot better, and he could no longer hear bone grind against bone. The boy no longer stank of blood.

 

The vampire was looking at the boy’s face, for a sign of consciousness, when the boy’s fingers flexed, and grabbed his hand. The vampire looked at his hand, and laughed. The boy had made it. It had worked, he’d survived!

 

The vampire sat, and watched as the boy slowly came to consciousness. When he eventually woke up, the vampire almost chuckled at how much emotion the boy showed in his face, then chastised himself. The boy was a little bit like him, and wore his emotions on his sleeve. First there was a wince of pain, then confusion, then elation and then finally panic.

 

The boy looked at his hand. Then he followed the arm, and looked the vampire straight in the face.  He yelped and pulled it away. He leaned away from him, terror racing though his large brown eyes. He then attempted to sit up, but he winced, and lay back down.

 

The vampire immediately moved to help ease him back down.

 

The boy looked at the vampire, “Who are you? Am I dead?”

 

“Be careful, _ chamaco. _ You need to lie down for your body to come to terms with what happened. Give it two minutes! Then we need to move,” the vampire said, glancing up the wall.

 

“Why? Who are you?”

 

“First, who are you? I think that’s what they usually ask if you’ve taken a knock to the head...”

 

“I’m Miguel R- I’m not sure what my surname is anymore. I don’t think I’ll like the answer. That’s not a concussion thing, more of another thing. I am twelve, and I want to be a  _ musicó _ , but my family won’t let me. Now who are you, and what’s going on?”

 

“You’re family sound sensible, really,” the vampire muttered.

 

“That doesn’t sound like a name.”

 

“Are you like this with everyone you meet,  _ Chamaco? _ ”

 

“Depends, if they tell me their name?”

 

The vampire paused for a moment. He could tell the boy, and get him to trust him, but  _ he  _ may overhear them, and that would put them in danger. Was the danger worth the trust? His two sides warred with himself. Eventually, he made a decision. 

 

However first he had to tell the kid his change in circumstances.

 

“I will, but first I need you to know I’m sorry. You can’t panic,” The vampire said.

 

“Why?” Miguel asked, sounding young and scared.

 

“I’m a vampire, and I didn’t have a choice, you must understand that,” The Vampire swallowed. “I turned you to save your life. You were dying. You survived because I... you’re now a vampire. Oh, and my name is Héctor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be here next Wednesday with a new installment, where we see how the boys got in this situation.


	2. Unsmiling Black and White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to go back to when Miguel makes an interesting discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for their massive support for this fic! I am incredibly touched that so many people enjoyed it! Also if you haven’t, please check out the fanart below, I love them. I am incredibly grateful and touched that people did art for my fic.Thank you to both artists, and thank you for letting me link it below.
> 
> Without further ado, let’s go back in time for Chapter 1, and the introduction of my main OC in this fic. 
> 
>  
> 
> _“23-1-9-20, 25-15-21 3-1-14’20 10-21-19-20 9-14 13-5-4-9-1-19 18-5-19 13-5!”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Zkdw? Brx dvnhg krz L zdv olnh wklv!?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“25-5-19… 2-21-20 8-15-23 20-8-5...? 23-8-25 4-9-4 8-5 3-15-13-5 20-15 20-8-1-20 3-15-14-3-12-21-19-9-15-14? 23-8-5-18-5 4-15 25-15-21 6-9-20 9-14-20-15 20-8-9-19? 19-20-1-18-20 6-18-15-13 20-8-5 2-5-7-9-14-14-9-14-7?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“...L dp qrw jrlqj wkurxjk d fhqwxub ri edg ghflvlrq pdnlqj!”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“4-15 25-15-21 23-1-14-20 13-5 20-15 2-5-12-9-5-22-5 25-15-21 15-18 14-15-20? 2-5-3-1-21-19-5 9 23-1-14-20 20-15… 9 18-5-1-12-12-25 4-15, 2-21-20 20-8-9-19… 20-8-9-19 9-19 1 22-5-18-25 2-9-7 20-8-9-14-7 25-15-21’18-5 4-18-15-16-16-9-14-7 15-14 13-5! 25-15-21 3-1-14’20 10-21-19-20 4-18-15-16 20-8-5 18-5-22-5-12-1-20-9-15-14 15-6 13-25 12-9-6-5 15-14 13-5… 1-14-4 10-21-19-20 14-15-20 5-24-16-12-1-9-14 9-20!”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“...L’p vruub. Lw’v frpsolfdwhg. Fdq L rqob eulqj xs pb… klv mdfndvvhub rqob zkhq qhhghg? Zkhq L zdv 17, kh wrog ph doo ri lw. Lw zdv d orqj qljkw, exw L qhhghg wr nqrz… dqg L grq’w olnh wr gzhoo.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Rn… Ohpph wklqn, lw zdv wkh ehjlqqlqj ri Rfwrehu, dqg….”_

####  **Chapter 1: Unsmiling Black and White**

 

Miguel’s phone buzzed in his jacket pocket. While he had been anticipating it, it still made him jump on his seat.

 

His _prima_ ,  Rosa looked over at him.

 

He giggled nervously, and swallowed a spoonful of soup so as not to raise suspicion. It scalded his tongue. He immediately down half of his bottle of water.

 

“ _Idiota,”_ Rosa muttered, before looking back down at her book.

 

Miguel rolled his eyes, “You’re only reading at the table because _Abuelita_ can’t see you.”

 

Rosa glared at him, “At least I am putting something of use between my ears. What was the last thing you read? That wasn’t homework.”

 

“Nothing,” Miguel sighed. The answer was poetry, but that answer would likely only cause an argument. It was the closest Miguel had been allowed to experiencing music. Now in his third year at the school, he had read the school’s library entire poetry section- twice.

 

Besides, he had a text message that needed to be checked, without alerting his _Abuelita’_ s little spy.

 

Miguel glanced around him, checking to see no teachers or other students were looking at him. He then looked over at his _prima_ , but Rosa was fully invested in her giant brick of a book.

 

Miguel pulled his phone out under the table, and checking the notification.

 

It was a text message. A single piano emoji.

 

_FINALLY!_

 

Miguel forced his face to remain neutral. He could not give anything away. Any trace of emotion and Rosa would be suspicious, or at the very least horrendously nosey. He glanced over at Rosa. He may as well be a brick wall for all the attention she paid him. She was thoroughly engrossed in her tome of ungodly size. She wouldn’t care what he did, just as long as it had nothing to do with music.

 

Miguel glanced at the text message, before pocketing his phone. Swallowing, he then  cleared his throat to get Rosa’s attention.

 

She glanced up at Miguel, raising an eyebrow.

 

“I just remembered,” Miguel said holding his right arm, “I haven’t done Profesora Perez’s homework. And her class is next period.”

 

Rosa rolled her eyes, “Miguel! Tia Luisa asked you this morning?! Go on! Go to the library then, you complete _idiota_.”

 

As she looked at him, Miguel noticed Rosa looked so tired. Miguel wanted to ask her was she okay. She then rubbed her face, and went back to her book. She did that a lot lately. She used to be a lot more bossy, watching him like a hawk, interrogating him on each aspect of his day, but now she barely cared. Recently, she was exhausted. Miguel guessed that working at the Zapateria after school, and doing school work, was draining her.

 

Or She wasn’t sleeping as much because she was a teenager.

 

“Thanks, Rosa!” Miguel smiled. She grunted at him, waving him away.

 

Miguel stood up, and collected his tray and bag. He kept his head down, carefully avoiding eye contact. He walked to where he put his tray. On route to the exit, Miguel saw a group of older students. He looked down, making himself seem unnoticeable. Luckily, they didn’t see him, and he walked out of the _comedor,_ without being hassled _._

 

Once he was out of there, he turned immediately left, and sped up his walking.

 

His entire journey, he kept his eyes peeled for teachers, and students alike. At one point he was about to open a door, when he heard footsteps on the other side. He dived behind the door, tucked in on himself. When the door opened, he saw Señora Juanes and Señor Flores walk through arguing, heading to the staff room.

 

Miguel counted to ten, before checking they were out of sight, and going through the door into the music department.

 

As part of his family’s music ban, _Abuelita_ had put in special circumstances banning any Rivera children from going near the music department. It excused them indefinitely from music classes. Instead, that time slot was often dedicated to extra woodwork or textile classes. She argued this was to practice the important skills for their family’s trade: shoemaking. However, the teachers weren’t always there to stop Miguel from going to the music department. One such time was _almuerzo,_ they had other duties, or were eating their lunch.

Miguel dashed past Music Room 1, and saw Señor Hernández sitting at his desk. The music teacher didn’t notice anything, invested completely in his lunch and the sitcom on his computer. Music Room 2 was empty.  
 

Miguel tiptoe'd down the corridor, glancing everywhere.

 

Miguel, nervously opened the doorway that led down a short corridor that ended in another door to the music room. The music room wasn’t always free, and he had nearly been caught sneaking there several times. He crept down the corridor, and edged open the door.

 

Before Miguel could even open the door enough to peer inside a familiar, baritone voice called out, “Don’t worry. It’s just me.”

 

Miguel sighed with relief, and walked inside.

 

Sitting against the closed piano keyboard, Miguel saw his only friend in _escuela:_ Mateo Cortez.

 

Mateo had his feet up on the piano bench. He had been reading, so his broad chested frame was hunched in on himself, with his back leaning against the piano. Propped against his thighs was a translation of _Brisingr_. Mateo’s square sharp jawline that made him look very assertive, was currently tucked into his chest. The awkward sharpness of his bone structure contrasted with his soft gentle doe eyes.

 

They had been his friend for three years, since the first time Miguel had sneaked into the music room. Mateo had found Miguel practising guitar. When his attempt to kick Miguel out failed, he took pity on Miguel, and promised he would keep Miguel’s secret. Miguel had been nervous to go back for a week after that. When he did finally return, Mateo had been practising piano. When Miguel told Mateo he played well, Mateo had offered to share his biscuits with him.

 

Mateo looked up at him grinning, pushing his thick-glasses up his nose, “I see you made it here. I hope there was no trouble?”

 

Mateo was also his sole accomplice to his music room-visiting rule breaking. Mateo would check the music room was free, and then would message Miguel if it was safe. They had to be careful neither of them were caught. Despite Mateo’s kind nature, Miguel’s Abuelita knew that Mateo played piano, thus in her mind he was a potential bad influence on her grandson.

 

Miguel threw his backpack next to Mateo’s on the floor, crossed over to the acoustic guitar rack pulling out his favourite. Then he walked over to a row of chairs along the wall, and sat down. By ear, he began to tune the guitar. Only then did he look up at Mateo.

 

“Well I managed to escape my guard with ease. She seems weird lately, I bet it’s working in the _zapateros,_ then doing homework. Then I managed to avoid the searchlights, and avoided some guard’s paths. The dogs were distracted, then I dug a hole, and hey ho I’m free,” Miguel explained.

 

“So you didn’t have to dig a tunnel behind Rita Heyworth then?”

 

“Who’s that?”

 

“How should I know? Some old _gringo_ movie star from the 50s? She was famous enough to have a poster… that was in a book I read?”

 

“Why would I dig a tunnel behind her?”

 

“Wait, you haven’t read Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption? Or seen the film...?” Mateo asked his eyebrows raised.

 

Miguel shook his head.

 

Mateo sighed, ”I forgot. This is you we’re talking about, you don’t have the attention span for books. And I forgot your family don’t own a TV, do they? Due to the ban.”

 

“Nope,” Miguel said looking down at his newly tuned guitar, trying to work out what to play.

 

“Ah,” Mateo winced. “I think I would be unable to get out of bed in the mornings if I didn’t have books. I wouldn’t be able to stomach living in this town if I didn’t have music… Good Music.”

 

“De la Cruz is not terrible music, Mateo,” Miguel said.

 

Mateo raised an eyebrow at Miguel, frowning, “It would be good, if it was actually music.”

 

Miguel had long learned this was not a battle he was going to win, and shrugged,  “Besides, there is no arguing with _Abuelita._ ”

 

Mateo shrugged and nodded, muttering, “I know what you mean.”

 

Miguel raised his eyebrow at Mateo, signalling to him to go on

 

The older boy blew a raspberry, and grumbled, “She wants me to get a girlfriend… for the winter dance. Which honestly, death would be more preferable.”

 

Miguel looked up at him sympathetically, and grimaced.

 

Mateo was an enigma to Miguel. He was quiet, and shy, preferring the company of books, yet at the same time he was one of the most popular boys in school, with friends in the popular clique. However, he unlike them, kind and polite, willingly spending his lunch hour with the most unpopular boy in school, who was also a year below him. Miguel suspected Mateo preferred books to a certain type of people --a group Miguel suspected he was not part of. He was also incredibly intelligent, and (according to several girls in Miguel’s class) quite handsome, but was a terrible communicator.

 

Mateo shrugged, “It’s times like this, I wish I had your family. I’d rather be making shoes than cosying up to some other sweaty teenager I don’t really know all night, making small talk with their father, who is obviously trying to work out can they kill me before I deflower their _ángel preciosa._ Just, honestly no.”

 

“No, you don’t wish you had my family,” Miguel said quietly. He would put up with the other sweaty person if he could just so much as get a night of music.

 

“You’re right,” Mateo said, quietly.

 

Miguel to looked at him. Immediately the younger boy winced, and felt terrible. Mateo’s eyes had glazed over, looking watery. Miguel could guess where his friend was. Miguel still didn’t know what to do when his friend looked like this. It was the one place he could never follow his friend, and at that cost, he would never want to.

 

After a minute, Mateo wiped his face, and half-heartedly smiled at Miguel. However, when he looked down at his book, his jaw seemed clenched, and his thick ear-length hair fell like a curtain in front of his face, obscuring Mateo’s eyes from view.

 

Miguel wanted to say something but wasn’t sure what. While he debated what to do, he remembered a hymn he had seen Ernesto de la Cruz perform at a charity event in a recording on his tapes. Miguel knew from past experience Mateo liked the song.

 

He gently began to play the song. He closed his eyes, losing himself to the gentle music. All he could feel were the strings under his finger as he played. It was such a perfect relaxing lull.

 

As Miguel played he felt the world fall away, and he felt safe, and free in the music.

 

Miguel only usually felt this safe in his attic hideaway above the workshop tonight. The noise of the machines below covered the music, that he played on his homemade guitar. He had bought a record player, hidden it up there and rescued a small pile of vinyls to play on it. He even had a TV up there, which no one -not even Mateo- knew about the VHS tapes of de la Cruz. Miguel had watched to all his films, performances and interviews. Ernesto de la Cruz was amazing, he could sing, dance, act -he could even fly! He had the bravest horse named Dante, and wrote all his own songs. However, there was one thing he couldn’t do, which was stop a bell from crushing him in 1942.

 

Miguel suddenly remembered Mateo, and opened an eye. Mateo was smiling, albeit a little sadly, head still in book.

 

“Is your _Abuelita_ is coming to play cards at our house next Saturday?” Mateo asked suddenly not looking up.

 

“Si, why?” Miguel asked, stopping the music immediately.

 

“You should ask your Abuelita can you come over too, so I can help you with science again,” Mateo said. “That way you can spend time with yours truly while they all talk and drink.”

 

“Maybe, but then she’ll want to see my work,” Miguel said.

 

“That’s fine, we’ll be done before they reach their second round,” Mateo said, waving his hand in a circle.

 

“Will we?” Miguel said.

 

Mateo looked up at Miguel, looking irritated, “Excuse you! I am top of the school at science!”

 

“I am not?” Miguel said.

 

Mateo looked at him with scrutiny, “No, a scientist you are not, but you’re not the worst.”

 

“But one round Mateo?”

 

“They’re all take years gossiping, so yeah I think we’ll be done in one round.”

 

Miguel snorted, “Do I need to remind you that you’re apparently the bad influence friend?”

 

“According to her. Don’t worry I will swear on a bible that I won’t corrupt you with piano music. Anyway, not that they know this, but you always get way to excited when I do play around you, saying such terrible things like ‘Jam session’.”

 

“Which we need to do someday.”

 

“That would be fine-  when you start listening to Jazz.”

 

“Excuse me! I am Mexican, and thus appreciate Mexican music.”

 

“When you shouldn’t even be appreciating any music! Because your family has a music ban. Maybe I am a bad influence,” Mateo frowned at the floor.

 

Miguel sighed, “No Teo, you’re actually a very good influence. Without you, who the heck would send me creepy awesome stories at 1am?”

 

Mateo smiled at him, before clearing his throat, and saying “Ok, you got me. But like are you coming next Saturday? I need to know so I can tell _Abuelita_ to buy Hawaiian pizza with mushrooms, you food heathen.”

 

“I’ll think about it, and don’t bash my food choices. Please remember that I shine shoes on Saturday afternoons.”

 

“I will remember. I will tell Abuelita. It will give her something to look forward to, she likes you.”

 

“More than those pedejo’s you spent your afternoons with?”

 

Mateo snorted, “Definitely.”

 

“They’re your friends.”

 

“I know and I shouldn’t complain,” Mateo glanced at Miguel from the corner of his eye, “But I have better ones.”

 

“Yeah, but you won’t if you keep bashing their pizza topping choices!”

 

That’s when the bell went. Both boys glanced at each other alarmed.

 

They usually left five minutes before the bell. Miguel stood up with a shot, sprinting over to the guitar rack, putting his guitar away. Behind him, he could hear Mateo swearing as he shoved his stupidly heavy book into his backpack.

 

“Miguel!” Mateo yelled, throwing Miguel his backpack to him. Miguel caught it just as he turned around, the force of which nearly making him topple back into the guitars. Mateo noticed and caught his arm just in time.  

 

Together they dashed out of the music room. Mateo opened the door for Miguel as they reached the end of the small corridor. As soon as Miguel was through the older boy fell in besides him, glancing around alert.

 

The halls were already filling up with students, and it was easy for them to become two anonymous students who didn’t know each other, and were only walking side by side as part of a large crowd.

 

Miguel hated it. He hated that he had to keep his passion a secret, or else face an inordinate punishment. He hated that he had to pretend his best friend was a stranger, just the grandson of one of his _Abuelita’s_ friends. He hated that he felt like a criminal, and that his entire life was comprised of secrets and lies, just to follow some stupid family rules, because of something that happened almost a century ago to people who were mostly all dead and didn’t even care.

 

Miguel wanted to scream, but he didn’t. Instead, he watched Mateo leave him to go to _carpintería_ , intentionally ignoring his presence. Miguel sighed and headed to _química._ At least with Mateo’s help, Miguel didn’t completely suck at the subject, nor due to the explosions did Miguel hate it. He had also in fact done the homework, last night.

 

Miguel passed Rosa en route to the science department. She saw him, and he must have looked miserable, because she pushed her glasses up her nose, and squeezed his shoulder as he passed. Rosa may not know or understand, but Miguel knew she at least cared. She wasn’t a terrible _prima,_ she was just as trapped as him. She just had found comfort in conformity, whereas Miguel chafed at it.

 

The rest of the day passed slowly, lazily like wet leather drying in the sun. This wasn’t helped by the fact the _laboratorios_ were devoid of any colour. The posters that were in the room were faded, and had not been changed once in at least three years. Miguel had read them all of them several times by now. That day, they had been learning about chemical equations, and while Miguel found the problems challenging in a way that was usually fun, they didn’t stifle his boredom, or his discontentment.

 

The discontentment subsided slightly when school ended. Miguel eagerly left the classroom, all but sprinting to get to where he was meeting Rosa. It wasn’t that he disliked school, he just disliked the constant feeling of being judged.

 

In Miguel’s eagerness, he didn’t look where he was going. A foot stuck out. Miguel tripped and fell smack on the ground. A small chorus of laughter rang around him. He grimaced at the pain in his winded chest. He glanced up to see the rest of the popular students: Pablo, Letu, Carmela and Daveed standing over him.

 

“I thought _hijos del zapatero_ were meant to be able to keep their feet on the ground,” Pablo joked causing the other to laugh.

 

“What are you going to do Rivera? Go home and let your Mama sing you a lullaby? Oh wait she can’t, because your family are freaks,” Letu sniggered.

 

Miguel stood up furious, wiping blood from his mouth, “Leave my mother out of this.”

 

“Oh look he’s angry! What’s Miguelito going to do? Hit us with a chancla? Ooh I am so scared!” Daveed pretended to quiver.

 

“Maybe that’s why your _tatara abuelo_ left, because your family has anger issues, and realised that your all incapable of being loved,” Carmela said.

 

Miguel screamed, and rushed at her, ready to hit or bite or kick. However, before he reached her, there was a scream from Pablo. This caused Miguel to stop, and look. The bully was keeled over, whimpering. Next to him was Rosa, her book in hand looking livid. By the looks of things, she had smacked Pablo in the stomach with the book

 

“If you don’t want to be a hit again, I suggest you leave my family, and my primo alone. You sack of worthless bits of meat,” Rosa said clearly, her glasses flashing.

 

Carmela, realising that Rosa wasn’t lying,  stammered, “We… We were just waiting for Cortez.”

 

Only at his friend’s name did Miguel look around and see Mateo. He was standing towards the front of the crowd, away from the other four. He looked horrified, distraught, and angry. He was glancing at Miguel to his other friends.

Miguel sighed, and shook his head at Mateo.

Miguel had long given up hope that Mateo would stand up to them. Mateo would tell them to stop in private, but in public he barely stood up to the group. He probably feared if he stood up to them he would be the brunt of their bullying. So he stood aside, and could only watch.

 

Rosa walked over, and put a comforting but firm arm around Miguel, and together they left the _escuela._

 

Rosa seemed deep in thought on the walk home, so Miguel decided it was best to stay quiet. However, the silence eventually got to him.

 

“Thank you,” Miguel eventually mumbled.

 

Rosa glanced up at him, and smiled, “No problem, you shouldn’t have had to deal with that lot anyway. They’re all just mean, nothing they said was true. Our family may be _different,_ yes, but we’re also smart, and caring, and we look out for each other.”

 

Miguel smiled sadly, “They’re not all mean.”

 

Rosa considered this, “You’re talking about Señora Catarina’s _nieto…_ Mateo? I have never talked to him, but he seems nice. However when it comes to bullies all I have seen from him, is that he is just a spineless coward.”

 

Miguel opened his mouth, but then decided that if he explained why Mateo was like he was, Rosa would ask how he knew that. And it wasn’t Miguel secret to tell, when Mateo so diligently kept Miguel’s. So instead he closed his mouth and shrugged.

 

The rest of the route was walked in a subdued silence.

 

Miguel tried to distract himself by looking up at the already changing leaves of the trees. While Miguel hated the end of summer, the freedom, and sunny days it entailed, he always found beauty in the Fall. The season showed that even in death the world was beautiful.

 

They passed into their courtyard, at the well they split ways to go to their separate rooms to change and start their evening chores.

 

Miguel walked into his room and flung his bag onto the bed. He changed into a pair of old jeans, a short sleeved grey shirt and his favourite soft, warm red hooded jacket. He was very glad his family didn’t have a uniform or anything that further identified him as a _hijo des Zapateria._

 

Miguel’s phone buzzed. He glanced down, and saw several messages from Mateo. Miguel sighed before checking it.

 

**_I’m sorry Miguel._ **

 

**_I wish I could just once stand up to them. I hate that they do this to you._ **

 

**_Pun not intended: I know for the record that if the shoes were reversed you’d stand up for me._ **

 

**_I have tried to speak to them, for what good it will do._ **

 

**_Are you ok?_ **

 

Miguel sent a text back, **_It’s ok, you don’t need to apologise to me, I know you. And it would be wrong to expect you to fight my fights for me. Besides, I am used to this by now. It hurts, but only a little_ **

 

Miguel pocketed his phone, and went down stairs. He walked into the kitchen, and saw no one was there. He dashed to the fridge, and grabbed a few leftover tamales, pocketing one, and ate another quickly. At one point a drop of red sauce leaked out onto Miguel’s chin, he wiped it away.

 

When he finished he walked back outside, and across the yard to the workshop. As he entered several members of his family called out greetings to him. Miguel, returned their greetings, but not with as much gusto as he usually did. He wriggled through the workshop to his shoe shine box, and grabbed the handle

 

“How was _escuela_ , _mijo?”_ Papa asked.

 

Miguel looked up, and smiled at his father, before shrugging, “It was school. So not much difference.”

 

Abuelita looked up at him, before asking, “Did you do anything interesting?”

 

Miguel reflected on his day, mentally censoring anything Mateo and music related, “No.”

 

“Did you make any friends today, Miguel?” Luisa asked, looking hopefully.

 

“No.”

 

“Well, there’s always tomorrow, mijo,” Luisa smiled sadly. She then glanced down at her basketball shaped belly, “And if that fails, next year I am sure your Hermanita or Hermanito will be your friend I am sure!”

 

“¡Sí!” For the first time since lunch, Miguel smiled. He then glanced around the room. “I’m going to go now. ¡Adiós!”

 

Mamá looked him over, before standing up, and “Ok, but be careful, si?”

 

“I will be,” Miguel said, putting the strap of his box over his shoulder.

 

“And do not got to Mariachi Plaza!” Abuelita added, pointing.

 

Miguel looked up at her.

 

“I wasn’t even thinking of it,” He lied.

 

 _Abuelita’_ s face softened, and she pulled him into a big hug. Miguel momentarily forgot how strong his Abuela was. She crooned, “You’re such a good boy. Soon you won’t just be shining shoes Miguel, you’ll be making them too! Mamá Imelda would be so proud!”

 

When she let go, Miguel inhaled deeply. _Abuelita_ gave very suffocating hugs.

 

At the mention of his great-great-grandmother, Miguel looked up at a small foto nailed to the back of the workshop. It showed Mamá Imelda in her prime. She was a beautiful, but stern looking woman. In her arms she held her daughter as a toddler gazing with curiosity at the camera, Miguel's Mamá Coco who he found hard to imagine as anything but a frail old lady. Meanwhile, the top left corner of the picture, where Coco’s father- Imelda’s husband had been, was ripped off. Not that anyone ever acknowledged Mamá Imelda’s husband’s, Miguel’s great-great-grandfather’s existence. He was the musician who had left and never come back.

 

Miguel grimaced, before forcing his face into a smile, “I’m going now.”

 

Then like a hare, he was out of the workshop. His family gave him cries of farewell as he left. Then in a few more steps he was out of the hacienda. Away from the angry watchful eyes of Mamá Imelda. He sprinted down Santa Cecilia’s uneven cobblestone streets. His shoeshine box was slamming into his hip, but he didn’t care. The identical cream and scarlet walls blurring around him, like a familiar tunnel.

 

Contrary to what Abuelita believed, Miguel didn’t care what the long dead Mamá Imelda thought of him. She was the reason he didn’t have music. Her husband had left to play for people across Mexico, and he sent money back with promises of returning. But the money wasn’t much, and Imelda had to learn to make shoes to support her daughter. Then one day the letters and money stopped, and Mama Imelda heard nothing, until a friend wrote to her saying that he husband had left her.

 

Imelda furiously removed all traces of her husband from the home, including any form music, forcing even those who married into the family to give it up. To distract herself from the loss of her husband, Imelda taught her two younger brothers, Oscar and Felipe, and her daughter, Coco, how to make shoes. Then, later, when Coco got married she taught her son-in-law, then her granddaughters.

 

Nearly one hundred years later and four generations later, they still lived in the same town, Santa Cecilia, making shoes. In fact their shoes were famous across Mexico, partly because all of their shoes were hand-crafted. Everyone was so happy in their quiet musicless shoe obsessed existence. They were all so content doing this, expecting everyone in the family to conform and do they’re part and never listen to music.

 

Everyone except Miguel, who hated it. He hated that he wasn't even allowed to blow on a coke bottle. He couldn’t see movies, or play games. He couldn't even listen to one jingle. He couldn’t play guitar, even though his fingers were itching to play the moment he saw one. He hated that his best friend was off limits because he played piano for extra college credits. He hated that at school he could only speak to Rosa, who was more of his jailer than cousin, and that he was bullied all the time. He hated shoes, and the idea of being stuck in this stupid, stagnant town making shoes for the rest of his life made him want to vomit.

 

Miguel stopped when he got to _El Puente Viejo._ He hadn’t meant to come this way, but he had just ran. Sometimes that house was stifling, and he wished he could just scream. In recent months that feeling of being stifled had just got worse. He stood there his hands on his knees, forcing himself to breathe.

 

Miguel looked across the bridge at _El Barrio Viejo,_ the clocktower that must have been there since time immemorial standing sentinel above the area _._ The other half of town always looked tranquil in the day, like everyone was asleep. Maybe it was just due to how lethargic the whole town was, but _El Barrio Viejo_ always looked tired.

 

It was creepy. Miguel shivered.

 

He didn’t know anyone who liked that side of the river. Even his parents avoided it, and the adults never let any of the children cross the bridge. There was something uncomfortable and dangerous about the other half of town’s tranquility, like staring at a poisonous flower. _El Barrio Viejo_ was hypnotic, and Miguel always wanted reach out and go there. Miguel heard that was where the crime was, apparently. However none of the police ever crossed the bridges to that area.

 

Miguel’s eyes wandered down the river. There was only one building that didn’t seem too dangerous to him. That was the old mill, it always seemed safe. However, not everyone shred that view,  Miguel had heard that Pablo’s cousin had gone there a few years earlier, when he had come back he hadn’t been the same.

 

A whine from a nearby bin caught Miguel’s attention, and he turned around in excitement.

 

“DANTE!” he yelled.

 

The bin tipped over. Out of it fell a whining scruffy Xolo dog with torn crooked ears. It saw Miguel and his tail began to wag in excitement.

 

“Here Boy!” Miguel said slapping his knees. The dog obediently leapt forward, licking Miguel’s hand.

 

“Sit!” Miguel said, his hand outstretched facing up. Dante sat. “Down! Roll over! Shake! Play Dead! Fist bump!”

 

The dog followed all the commands, only pausing to whine in confusion at Miguel at the last trick.

 

Miguel grinned at Dante’s progress, and leaned into help him obtain the last trick, knocking his fist against Dante’s paw.

 

“Good boy Dante!” Miguel said, pulling out the spare tamales from his jacket and launching it in the air. It landed behind the dog, who rolled over himself to get at the treat.

 

He glanced down the street behind him, and then at the bridge. There was no one. No witnesses, spies or jailers.

 

Miguel grinned to himself, and took off down a street towards town centre. Dante followed him excited. The street ran in a 45∘ angle to the river, and lead back onto the main street through town.

 

Miguel and Dante went back onto the main street, confident that they were far enough away from the Zapatiera that they wouldn’t be spotted. Unlike before Miguel felt safe in the crowd, and not stifled. The anonymity was a comfort, because it hid him from his family and bullies alike. Even more in his favour it was leading him to, not away from, music.

 

The street was bustling as market sellers advertised their ways, displaying everything from Piñatas to different street food to bits of town history and of course there were at least ten thousand stalls dedicated to Ernesto de la Cruz memoranda. The signs and wares along the street were all eye catching, colourful and bright. People were passing things to each other, exchanging money, everything always in motion.

 

It was loud, both aurally and visually. People tried to yell over each other to get passers by to look at their wares. Some of the people were haggling with tourists, or taking on extra orders from locals. There was the noise of people talking, laughing, arguing. There was music playing from all directions, some pop songs, some de la Cruz music, and some Mexican music by other artists like Jorge Negrete and Pedro Infante.  

 

The street even smelled delicious. Miguel’s nose was practically assaulted with all of the scents, from freshly baked goods, cinnamon and the spicy smell of cooked chillies and broths. There was the thick ambrosiac smell of chocolate from one stall, accompanied by the bitter smell of coffee. There was also fresh fruit, which smelled sweet, and the smell of meat which smelled honestly not good.  

 

At one point the street broke into _Plaza San Nicolas,_ a small square with a small grassy park on one side, and a cobblestone area on the other.  In this square, the fat, stone ornate buildings of the civic centre were situated. Each side of the square housing banks, insurance offices, Santa Cecilia’s one legal firm, and opposite each other like imposing book ends were the Courthouse, and the town hall which backed onto the library on _Calle San Gregorio_ through the hall of records.

 

Miguel didn’t stop, and he passed through the square. Quickly a lot of the buildings became more tacky, and touristy. Many claiming that Ernesto de la Cruz had eaten in THEIR restaurant, or sat on THAT bench as he wrote Remember Me.

 

Several people in town claimed that the song had been written for a mysterious woman, who was their great- aunt’s second-cousin twice removed room-mate, or some variation thereof. Miguel guessed that was just an urban legend, because if a woman had been Ernesto de la Cruz’s muse she had never advertised it. Besides, there was no record of Ernesto ever coming back to the town after he had left.

 

Eventually Miguel saw his prize at the end of the street. He broke into a run. People allowed him, and Dante, to pass through. Dante barked and loped happily besides him.

 

Ahead of Miguel, was the world famous Santa Cecilia mariachi plaza. The place mariachi’s from across Mexico performed in. It was where Ernesto de la Cruz had begun. Where so many great musicians had played, where all of the town’s festivals were.

 

Music flooded Miguel’s ears before he even saw the Plaza. It was intoxicating, beautiful and exciting. He felt like a fish returning to the sea, or like he was listening to the pied piper himself. His feet seemed to walk him to the Plaza of  their own volition, following the delightful pull of the music. The thrum thrum beat of the music seemed to echo his footfalls as he sprinted to his favourite place in Santa Cecilia.

 

Music was everything to Miguel, it was his blood, his food, and his haven. He loved hearing every snatch of music that he could possibly hear. He resented his family, because how could they shut out something so innocent?  Each snatched beat of a song, each blow of a brass instrument, each strum of a guitar. All of these things were like ambrosia to him. He loved each snatched taste he received. And like an addict he craved just that little bit more.

 

Miguel ran into the courtyard and grinned. The music was cacophonous here, but still so enjoyable. Many of the mariachi were playing covers of famous de la Cruz songs and other famous Mexican musicians. Some were bold and confident to play their own original arrangements, which always garnered some weariness and support from the other musicians.

 

The plaza was a lot less formal than that of the civic centre plaza. There were only shops on one end of the plaza, the other three sides were reserved just for the musicians and their audiences. It was also a lot more busy. There were tourists looking at the musicians or the statue or tokens about the town history or de la Cruz. In the centre there was an ornate wooden bandstand, in front of which was a single iron statue.

 

A group of tourists were standing in front of the statue listening to a tour guide excitedly talking about it’s subject.

 

“Right here in this very plaza is where a young Ernesto de la Cruz took his first steps towards  becoming the most be singer in Mexican history. As well as this he wrote all of his own compositions, even those he’d later play in his films _El Sacerdote que Pensó que Podía_ and _El Camino a Casa_. He did all of his own stunts in these movies too, taking pride in his work in each movie,” the tour guide said.

 

The tour moved on and Miguel walked up to the statue. He always felt giddy with excitement upon seeing Ernesto de la Cruz statue. Even though he had seen it many times before. No matter what anyone said Ernesto de la Cruz wrote the best songs.

 

Ernesto had been a nobody from this stupid backwater town too. He had probably felt stifled, and had people mock him. He’d even had to cope with the revolution, yet he’d persevered, and played. His music had brought people together, and he was loved by most of Mexico. He had got up and sang his way out of this town, into the light of adoration of fans, onto films that only accentuated how cool he was.

 

That was until he had died from his injuries a few days after being crushed by a bell. A freak accident, and he had been gone.

 

Miguel wanted to be just like him.

 

For now though he was stuck here living under his family’s stupid rules. He didn’t mind the shoe business that much, he just wished he could be more than that. He didn’t want to be a shoe maker. Miguel glanced down at his shoe shine box. It weighed on his hand like a manacle.

 

He then straightened up, and put on his most _de la Cruz_ smile, and went to find a place where he could start working. In the meantime, he too would persevere.

 

\----

 

It was getting dark when Miguel finished shining his last pairs of shoes. Dante had slept by his side while he’d worked, occasionally grunting in his sleep. He liked to talk as he worked. One particularly chatty Mariachi, Esteban always came over to Miguel to have his shoes shined, and ask how he was. Miguel liked that about the _musicos_ they were nice, and fun, and talked to him while he worked.

 

Miguel cleaned up quickly, mindful that if he came home too late, his familia would come looking for him. Then he could be caught here. That would close the door on one of his only avenues of freedom. Also, _Abuelita_ always made it clear she didn’t like Dante, complaining that he was a filthy stray, who was only begging for scraps. Several times she had hit his best non-bipedal best friend with a show.

 

So for the sake of his and Dante’s preservation Miguel was fast in packing up

 

When he was ready, he set off down the street back home. He liked the dusk, there was something soothing about the fading light that made Miguel feel at ease. Not necessarily safe, but he didn’t see shadows lurking in each corner, like others might. Miguel had noticed that Santa Cecilia had an unusually busy night-life for such a small town. The types of people changed too, these seemed calmer, and oddly none of them looked tired, which was surprising. Sometimes, on his way home, he would catch the eye of one of these people, and for a brief moment Miguel would feel an eerie calm spread across him. Then suddenly the person would turn away, and Miguel would feel normal again. It was weird and uncomfortable, so he had long learned to keep his head down.

Miguel passed a stall selling old photographs, where a man was eating food while packing up. Miguel barely noticed, but Dante did. He barked, and ran over to the stall, and started to attempt to eat the man’s food. The stall seller who had been loading up boxes looked at Dante, and laughed. He grabbed the plate from Dante’s greedy mouth, before handing Dante  a half eaten bread roll. While Dante was distracted,the stall seller pushed his muzzle off the table

 

“Hey kid! Come grab your dog for me?” The stall owner yelled.

 

Miguel dashed over. “Dante! I am so sorry! He’s bad at behaving around food.”

 

Miguel waited for Dante to stop eating the bread, before wrestling him away from the stall. Eventually he managed to get the dog to sit by a nearby lamp post, distracted by a small piece of leather scrap Miguel had in his shoe shine box. Only then did Miguel turn to look at the stall, to see that the dog had knocked off a couple of boxes of photographs.

 

Miguel ran over to help the man pick up the fotos. He stooped down, and started to collect them into his hands.

 

“Thank you Chamaco,” The man said, smiling at Miguel. “Hey, I know you. You’re Señora Elena’s Nieto, si?”

 

“Si,” Miguel sighed before smiling. Everyone in town knew _Abuelita._

 

“She’s a nice lady, she fixed my shoes at half the rate, and probably with better craftsmanship that what they were asking in the _cuidad_ ,” the man asked, pointing at his shoes.

 

Miguel glanced down. The shoes looked good as new. Miguel nodded, before indicating at the fotos in his hand. “Why are you selling fotos?”

 

“Town history,” the man shrugged. “Posh places like to have fotos of the town through the years. They buy them from me and then made huge and put on their walls. Those in your hand? That’s the clocktower square in _El Barrio Viejo._ ”

 

Miguel glanced down at the foto in his hand. It was dated May 1926. It was an old black and white image of a square. The photographer had taken a photo of the town in action. There were people talking in cafes, or reading on a bench. People talking, shopping, going about their business. It looked busy, unlike the practical ghost town it was now. At the base of what Miguel was the clock tower a bunch of children were playing a game. The foto was like staring through a window into another time, where all the people were frozen.

 

Miguel chuckled, one man had noticed the photographer, and had posed with _jazz hands_ as though in a show. He was a young man with gangly features, and floppy straight hair. His eyes were a large, and his nose looked like it had been broken a few times. His chin was pointed, and his grin... His teeth was reflecting sunlight.

 

“Señor, how is this man’s teeth reflecting sunlight?” Miguel asked.

 

The stall seller turned from the box he was packing up, looked at the foto.

 

“Hmm, I don’t know? Maybe he has a fake tooth? Something that reflected the glint of the sun as he posed?” The stall seller suggested.

 

Miguel put the foto on the table and looked at the others. Since he had never seen _el Barrio Viejo_ , the stack fascinated him.

 

About halfway through, he came across one of a man playing guitar on a stage in a seedy bar, while two women danced in front of him. This foto was dated January 1963, and the foto was surprisingly in colour. The subjects of the foto all seemed slightly blurred, they’re features hard to make out. Perhaps due to the motions they had been going through. The two women were wearing period dresses. One woman had long back hair tied into a braid, while the other had curly brown hair held back an ornate hair clip. Both looked pale, but that could have been the lighting.

 

However, it was the man who caught Miguel’s attention. His features were the most in focus. He was young. He was grinning happily playing the guitar. He had medium length floppy black straight hair. He was gangly, but that was less noticeable behind the guitar. His nose looked like it had been broken, and had a pointed chin. He wore a purple waistcoat, and in his teeth there was a shining gold tooth.

 

Shakily Miguel picked up the 1926 foto, the same man grinned out at him in both. Miguel swallowed. The man hadn’t aged, in fact except for the change of clothing and colour print, the man looked exactly the same as he had in 1963 as he had in 1926.

 

Miguel flipped through the fotos then, scanning for any image of the man. He didn’t have any luck until he got to August 1995. He flipped over a foto two children playing in the fountain, while a woman read a paper, and nearly dropped the stack. There was a full portrait image of the man. He was smiling at the camera, his gold tooth on display. Crooked nose dominating his face. The same age as he had been 70 years earlier.

 

Miguel held the three fotos side by side. What did it mean? Who was this man? Why didn’t he age?

 

“Hey Chamaco, if you’re done, I’d like them back?” The stall seller said, snapping Miguel out of his daze.

 

Miguel shook his head, and handed the large stack of fotos back. The three with the timeless man were still in his hand.

 

Miguel was glanced at the sky, only then noticing how dark it was. Miguel shivered, for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold. Something about this man scared him, and he wanted nothing more than to get home.

 

He was picking up his shoe box, and stopped. The stall owner was reaching for them.

 

Then for a reason Miguel would never know, he cleared his throat, “Actually can I buy those?”

 

“These?” The man asked pointing at the three fotos.

 

“Sí.”

 

The man leaned behind the stall, and looked at the prices taped there. “Ok… That will be  37 pesos please.”

 

Miguel fished the money out of his pocket, while the man put them in a paper bag. They did the exchange.

 

“ _¡Gracias!_ Come along, Dante, _”_ Miguel said, and turned to go home, unaware of the events he had just set into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter too! I know this chapter was slower than my last one, but I needed to go back to the start.
> 
> Please feel free to leave comments! I really enjoy them.
> 
> Also I didn’t say this last week, but if you want a go at the codes, go for it. You don’t miss anything in the story by not working out the codes, but there is something extra there if you want a go. 
> 
> See you same day next week! Where we start with a smash.


	3. Chapter 2: The Eyes in Her Head See the World Spinning Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosa reflects on her situations at early hours in the mornings.
> 
> Miguel hears a story, and makes hot chocolate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am always really anxious uploading a new chapter, so to see people like the fic, make art for and speculate potential upcoming plot points, and are ready to engage with the fic makes me smile and keeps me excited for my Wednesday night (when I upload).
> 
> This chapter I am introducing a big new world building plot line so I hope you like it, and it fuels your speculation, comments and reactions.
> 
> Also I am curious: does anyone do the codes? If so, I have added some hints in the tags to help. Also if you want to ask me about the coded parts, please don’t be afraid to ask. 
> 
>  
> 
> _“19-15 1-12-12 15-6 20-8-9-19 19-20-1-18-20-5-4 2-5-3-1-21-19-5 1 16-8-15-20-15-7-18-1-16-8?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Iru xv lw glg. Krzhyhu, iru rwkhuv wkhb zhuh sxoohg lq qrw eb fkrlfh exw eb jhqhwlfv... ”_

_Tst… Crash!_

 

Rosa Rivera lurched awake upright, just managing to stifle the scream scrambling up her throat.

 

She jolted up in bed, chest heaving. She felt tired and drained, as though she hadn’t just been sleeping, and instead running a marathon. Her room was dark, but not to the point where she was unable to make out the outlines of objects. She was gasping with the desperation of a fish out of water. Semi-blind, she searched her room for the source of the crash. All that she could hear however was the sound of her blood beating in her body like someone tapping lightly on an earphone in your ear.

 

_No! No! No! Not Again._

 

She swallowed, looking around the room for the source of the noise. Meanwhile, she used her left hand to fumble about for her glasses, and her bedside light switch. She found them both, and put them on.

 

And when She looked around again, and saw the source.

 

Her glass vase which _Tía_ Luisa had gifted her for Christmas was shattered. However, that was not what was unusual about the sight. The smashed vase, water and the flowers within -a daffodil and anemone from the San Nicolas flower festival-  were all suspended in the air. The shattered glass, hovered suspended in the air around the floating water and the flower trapped within.

 

Rosa stared for a moment, before recoiling. As she did, the glass, the water and flower dropped to the ground with a splash and crunch.

 

Rosa closed her eyes for a moment, trying to regain her breath. She opened her eye, hopeful that the floating smashed vase had been a hallucination.

 

It had not.

 

There was water and glass impacted about a meter away from the table it had been resting on.

 

Rosa sighed, glancing at her clock. It was 5.22am, she had just over half an hour before Abuelita and Mamá got up. She clenched her jaw, and got out of bed.

 

With almost a trained grace she crept along the upstairs corridor, before carefully manoeuvering the old wooden staircase. She padded down the tiled floor of the corridor, into the kitchen towards the _armario de utilidades._ Quickly, she grabbed a broom, mop, dustpan and brush, and went back upstairs to her room.

 

Back in her own room she quickly got to work cleaning up the mess. It was quiet and busy work, something she did in the _Zapateria_ on quieter days with less orders _._ She was used to it, and usually liked being left alone with the time to think. However, that was the last thing she wanted now.

 

Rosa missed the days when the biggest thing on her mind was her _primo’s_ musical deviancy. It hadn’t been difficult to learn how Miguel spent his lunch hours, he wasn’t known for his subtlety. She used to spend hours either thinking about how best to not think about the fact Miguel sneaked off every other lunch to talk to Mateo Cortez in the music room, or trying to cope with the gnawing feeling in her gut that Miguel had a friend and she didn’t.

 

She didn’t like her _primo_ ’s dangerous obsession with music, not because she didn’t like music, but because she was scared of the fallout if _Abuelita_ found out. However, she didn’t hate it either. She knew how hard it was to make friends at _escuela_ with everyone calling you a _hijo del zapatero,_ so for now she’d pretend that Miguel was just going off to speak to teachers or do homework. She just wished someone would show her that kindness too.

 

Rosa had tried in the past to make friends, but due to the aforementioned problem, that never proved successful. Another issue was that she was too ‘nerdy’ for the ‘girly’ girls, and too ‘girly’ for the ‘nerdy’ girls. It also probably wasn’t a good indicator that Miguel thought she was just a _Abuelita’s_ pion: following her orders blindly, keeping an eye on him all the time.

 

However, that was before the incidents.

 

Rosa wouldn’t even question them usually,  but… this was the third time she had cleaned up her bedroom after waking up to something she couldn’t explain using physics. She had first believed the first two to be an accident and a trick of the light, but after the third incident, it was hard to deny something was happening. Water didn’t float, nor did glass or flowers(unless they were in an anti-gravity chamber, which her bedroom wasn’t).

 

The first time, she had thought it has been a freak accident. She had awoken to all the electric items in her room, flickering on and off rapidly. She’d screamed, and jumped out of bed. In doing so she had seen her mobile phone, over heating, screen going crazy. She had managed to unplug device, before the phone’s searing heat had burnt her fingers, and she’d launched it across her room. Her brother and father both ran in, just as the freak electricity had blown out the lights in her room, and her phone had blown up in a shower of fire and sparks.

 

It had taken a whole morning for her to calm down, with even Miguel being nice to her that day. Papá and Abel had changed the light bulbs in her room,  _Abuelita_ got an electrician in. Mamá had taken her that afternoon into the city to get a new phone. The electrician hadn’t been able to find the cause, eventually blaming a freak power surge in that part of the house. Mamá had wanted to take Rosa to hospital, but in the end Rosa had decided she was just shaken up. After that, she made a point of not leaving anything in her room plugged in at night.

 

A month or so later, the ‘power surge’ had faded into a bad memory in her mind, and Rosa had started to plug her new phone in at night.

 

The next incident had been in church. _Abuelita_ liked to get everyone up early so that they could go to the earlier Sunday service to avoid the music. There was both a benefit and a downside to this. The benefit was that there was very rarely awkward encounters with anyone from _escuela_. The bad news was that church was as dry, cold and boring as the Sahara at night.

 

Rosa had been very bored as she listened to the Padre read from the bible, and really tired from reading a very good reconciliation pre-52 DickxBabs fic the night before. She had been staring at a flame on the end of a candle, half-asleep. In her mind she imagined the flame had been swaying side by side, slowly swaying off the wick. Once the flame had worked its way off the wick, it bounced higher up to the church ceiling, like a child hopping in puddles. Rosa imagined that her little flame was a pencil, and she drew a flower and a bumble bee. She was just starting to spell out her name when Manny had shouldered her, jerking Rosa into wakefulness. She had lurched forward, and saw to her surprise the flame return to its wick.

 

She remembered thinking that her dream must have influenced the memory, or the flame had simply leaped due to an outside source. However, there had also been a hint of suspicion after that. She was sure that she had been in control of the flame, and that fire rarely leapt that far.

 

The suspicion paid off a week later when she noticed the flame from her candle floating just above her head, when she had looked up while reading another fic. The shock of seeing the flame floating above her head had made her yelp. In response the flame had shot back to the candle, partly setting one of her bra straps on fire. Once she had put out the fire with a glass of water, she had stared at the candle for a solid minute. It hadn’t been a hallucination this time, the bra strap was proof of that. She had not lit a candle in her room since then, and was always more cautious with objects in her room.

 

There had been two other incidents in the month and half since then. Once she had woken up to her potted flower having turned into a wall creeper while she slept. Luckily, she had woken up early enough, and the flower hadn’t grown nearly enough that Rosa had any issues getting rid of it off her wall, even if a cool Batgirl poster was lost in the battle.

 

The other incident had been in _química_. Carmela and Letu had been sitting behind Rosa, whispering to each other about Rosa’s appearance. Rosa usually wouldn’t be bothered by it, but she was tired from staying up making sure she didn’t accidentally kill her family with the random incidents that kept happening while she was asleep or tired. So when Letu had made a comment about Rosa’s straight hair and Carmela had laughed on it, Rosa had mumbled under her breath that she hoped Carmela choked on her laughter.

 

Rosa had only noticed something was weird when Carmela was still laughing thirty seconds later. She was finding it hard to breathe in, and Letu was getting worried. The teacher had turned around to ask Carmela what was so funny, but Carmela kept laughing. Rosa had turned around to look at her classmate. Whereas before Carmela’s face had been contorted into joy, now she looked terrified as she continued to laugh uncontrollably. Letu had start shriek in fear at her friends manic laughter. Mateo, who had been sitting on the desk across the aisle from Rosa got up and tried to calm Carmela down.

 

For a few seconds Rosa watched as Carmela started to turn blue, before Rosa had mumbled terrified, “please stop”.

 

The effect was instantaneous, and Carmela practically fell off her chair coughing and mewling in fear. Rosa could only watch, wrestling with the knowledge that she had nearly killed her classmate. The teacher had told Carmela to go to the nurse, Mateo and Letu escorting her looking worried.

 

Rosa, by this point, had cleaned up the glass and flowers, and dried the floor. She went down stairs carefully, and put the glass in the bin, and put the mop away. Rosa was just pulling a vase down from the shelf to put her flowers in, when an idea occurred to her.

 

Some of the events had been due to the fact she had willed them into happening, admittedly not all of them, but enough to be more than coincidences. The three events that had happened while she had been asleep she couldn’t explain. 

 

Rosa put the daffodil on the counter in front of her. With all of her might she willed it to levitate. She stared at it intently for a few minutes, slowly feeling more stupid, when she remembered something else. Every time an incident had happened she’d been distracted, or tired.

 

Changing tactics, Rosa picked up the vase, walked over to the sink, and filled it with water. Without looking she willed the flowers to follow her. Turning the sink off, she turned around. There were two flowers floating in front of her. Rosa looked at them for a moment, before holding out the vase, willing the flowers to drop in. They did, with a slight splash.

 

Breathing heavily, Rosa put the vase on the counter. She grabbed her arms, as she forced herself to try and take breaths. Except it was impossible, as the rising panic within her took hold, and stopped sensible thought. She covered her face with her hands, and began to shake. She sunk to her knees, her back against the cupboard door. Tears began to flow down her face.

 

 _What was going on?  How could she do this?_ There was something wrong with her. _She was a freak._ Who could make inanimate objects bend to their will? _She was dangerous._ It was only a matter of time before she killed someone.

 

That’s how Abuelita found her half an hour later. She asked Rosa what was wrong, but the girl couldn’t answer. SHE WAS too afraid to speak. How could she explain? She wished she could, but how? Even as she tried, Rosa realised it was futile. She was simply too afraid; too afraid of what had happened. Too afraid of herself.

 

\-----

 

“MIGUEL! WHERE ARE YOU?” Abuelita’s voice called through the floorboards of the attic.

 

Miguel who had been sat crossed legged playing his homemade guitar, froze. He yelped, putting his guitar down, and jumped up in fear.  He had spent the Thursday late- afternoon contemplatively playing de la Cruz melodies from the VHS tapes. While this had partly been to practice, it had been so that he could think about the three photographs of the gangly man without being interrupted by his _familia_.

 

The attic above the workshop was simultaneously the best and worst place to play music. It was the best, because the machinery below drowned out the soft notes Miguel brought from his guitar. It was the worse, because if he played a single note at the wrong time he would be grounded for time infinitum.

 

It was a small cramped dark attic, full of stuff his family had put up there before Abuelita had made the expansion on the house thirty years ago. It was fascinating, because as well as there being several boxes of invoices there was also personal effects like clothes or books. Miguel had even found a pair of dancing shoes tucked between two boxes.

 

The clutter had been made worse since Miguel had discovered the attic. That had been three years ago, and since then he had slowly squirreled away many musical, in particular Ernesto de la Cruz, artifacts. Amongst them was an old television, a vinyl player and many de la Cruz memorabilia and vinyls. Miguel had even made a banner that read _¡Por Siempre!_ Underneath on the back of shoe wrapping paper. The whole thing was lit with some fairy light he had found, and then rather cautiously placed candles along and around the collection.

Propped against the vinyl player was a copy of Miguel’s favourite de la Cruz EP: Remember me. The cover of the vinyl showed Ernesto de la Cruz with a carefree smile, holding his famous guitar.

 

Miguel was always drawn to the vinyl covers that showed the guitar. He felt drawn to them like a moth to a flame. It may a trick of his mind, but Miguel always thought that the guitar had an almost gentle orange glow. Something about it always made him feel at home and safe, but with a weird feeling of sadness as though he was home, but the house was empty.

 

The three _fotos_ Miguel had bought earlier that week were propped up against his old tv monitor. In the days since he had found them, Miguel’s best guesses had been that the person shown in the three _fotos_ was either three separate identical family members, or pure coincidence that three similar enough men would live in the same town, or that it was just a trick of the mind. Like in the one de la Cruz movie where it looked like he was picking up a smartphone.

 

So, not much progress had been done. Also Miguel didn’t really believe they were different people or that he was seeing things. If so, what were the chances all three would have a gold tooth? He had considered looking into public records, but he hadn’t had much of a chance, because of school. Also his Abuelita would no doubt want to know what he was researching. Then she’d want to know how he got the photographs.

 

“MIGUEL!” Abuelita yelled.

 

Miguel suddenly remembered why he was standing in the middle of his attic hideaway, and if he wished to keep it as a secret he better start moving. He grabbed the _fotos_ and put them in his hoodie pocket.

 

He ran to the exit in the wall. He accidentally disturbed Dante, who had been asleep near the wall. The dog, upon seeing Miguel leaving, stood up and followed him. The pair pushed their way out behind the boot sign, and scrambled down the roof and wall.

 

As soon as Miguel was on solid ground, he shooed Dante away. The dog whined, balefully, but he walked away towards _El Puente Viejo_ with a slight spring in his step _._ Watching the dog, Miguel wondered where Dante went when he wasn’t with him.

 

Miguel heard _Abuelita_ call him again, and he wiped the dirt off of him, and walked around the corner into the courtyard

 

 _Abuelita_ was standing there her arms crossed. She looked a terrible combination of worried, upset and irritated.

 

“Miguel Rivera, where have you been? I’ve been calling you!” _Abuelita_ said, brandishing _una chancla_.

 

Miguel stopped where he stood, putting his hands in the air, eyes scrunched closed. “I went to the market, tooo geet an apple! ...Which I ate! _¡Si!_ I was coming back from the market. Do you need help with something _Abuelita?_ ”

 

 _Abuelita_ stared at him. She opened her mouth as though to question him further, before pausing and shaking her head. It hadn’t been Miguel’s best lie, and they both knew. She sighed, and shook her head.

 

“Rosa is still sick,” Abuelita said, tiredly.

 

“Still?” Miguel’s voice rising in surprise.

 

 _Abuelita_ had found Rosa crying in the kitchen very early that morning, and had been unable to get more than a few mumbled words from her. _Abuelita_ had then decided that Rosa wasn’t going to school that day.

 

Miguel wasn’t always his _prima’s_ biggest fan, but she was his friend. When he had seen her that morning, she had looked pale and there was a jumpiness that reminded him of a bunny. This was not normal Rosa behaviour, and he was worried.

 

The day had not been made better when Mateo had texted him during lunch. He had been stuck with Carmela and Letu. The two girls had been flirting with Mateo, while the two other popular boys played _fútbol._ Miguel had sent Mateo a commiserative **_that sucks_** , and ended up having a very quiet lunch hour, hiding in the library. It had been really lonely.

 

 _Abuelita_ nodded, “Therefore your _Tías, Mamá_ and I have our hands full with food and looking after the twins until food is ready. Can you look after Mamá Coco for a while?”

 

“ _Si!_ ” Miguel grinned, eyes widening in excitement. Maybe his day was finally looking up? He adored Mamá Coco. She always indulged him in all of his favourite games. He also told her all of his secrets, even his friendship with Mateo and music.

 

He turned to head towards Mamá Coco’s room, when _Abuelita_ yelled after him. “But do not bother her too much Miguel! She is nearly one hundred!”

 

“ _¡Sí!_ ” Miguel yelled back.

 

Miguel crossed over to Mamá Coco’s room. It was a simple solid door made of wood. Miguel gently pushed it open, and walked inside. Immediately, he was hit by a blast of delightfully cool air.

 

“ _Hola Mamá Coco!_ ” Miguel said cheerfully.

 

The room was cast half in shadow, due to the setting sun. There was a single bed, pushed against the wall, with a worn patterned quilt on it.  Inside the simple room was the oldest woman Miguel had ever met, who was his favourite family member outside his parents. Coco was sat in the darker side of the room, unmoving in her wheelchair. She was staring blankly ahead as though she hadn’t heard Miguel.

 

It wasn’t a good sign for how aware she was today. Miguel bit his lower lip, and sighed. At least when she was responsive he felt less lonely.

 

After a moment silence Miguel continued, stepping into the room. “It’s me, Miguel. Rosa is sick, so Abel is looking after the twins, and _Abuelita_ told me that I could spend time with you today.”

 

The only thing Mamá Coco did in response was swallow.

 

As he entered, Miguel heard the radio, as always, on the news channel. He glanced at the dresser covered in several pill bottles and ointments. Next to which was also the picture of a young, severe looking woman with half-moon spectacles in her thirties, standing next to an older man. Miguel instantly recognized them as Abuelita’s sister Victoria, and Mamá Coco’s husband Julio. He had never met either of them. They had died long before he was born.

 

Miguel switched off the radio.

 

“So! Mamá Coco, I am ok. It was a bit lonely today in school without Rosa. Even Teo… Mateo was busy today! There were girls flirting with him today but when I saw him at lunch, he looked like he would rather try eating his shoe. His Abuela is trying to get him into dating, but I think he thinks the girls who will ask will be only looking at his face, and his popularity, not him. Teo would hate that, I mean I would hate that too! To just have your personality ignored, because you’re popular... Or in my case unpopular...

 

Miguel stared at the floor glumly, sitting down on the bed. He then sighed, and continued.

 

“Anyway! I was busy today, they would have been soooo bored spending time with me. I was thinking about these _fotos_ I bought at the market a few days ago. They look completely normal, but then there’s this man in them. I think they’re all the same man, but that could be my eyes playing tricks on me, or maybe they’re all relatives…?

 

Miguel pulled the _fotos_ out of his pocket, and put them in front of his great great  grandmother, “Look here, it’s a normal street, _si_?  And look there, the man posing with sun shining on his teeth? That’s in 1926. The next foto was taken in 1995, and if you look carefully at the ‘26 foto, it looks like the same man, gold tooth, messy hair, everything. Then there is this foto from 1963 with the two ladies dancing. And there he is again in this foto, as a musico. Who is he?”

 

“Papá was a _musico,_ ” Coco said.

 

Miguel glanced around the empty room, before nodding, “ _Si_.”

 

“He still sings to me once a year” Coco said again.

 

Miguel cocked his head to a side, and saying a bit slower, “ _¿Que?_ ”

 

Coco didn’t speak for a minute, before she said smiling. “ _Sí_ , he sings to me.”

 

“ _¿Que?_ ”

 

“I saw him once. He looked so young. He hadn’t aged a day,” Mamá Coco said.

 

“Mamá Coco, did this happen when you were a little girl? How old were you?”

 

“I always heard him, even as a little girl. The first time I saw him again, I was older. He was across the other side of the river. So I crossed _El Puente Viejo_ ,” Coco said.

 

“ _El Puente Viejo?!”_ Miguel asked failing to hide his nerves.

 

“ _Sí._ I was delivering shoes for Mamá. I hadn’t seen my Papá in such a long time,” Mamá Coco said, ignoring Miguel. “I was so excited to see him again. He was there, on the other side of the bridge.”

 

“ _Adelante_.”

 

“I followed him. He walked through _El Barrio Viejo_ , staying in the dark. I started to think it wasn’t him,” Coco said.

 

“Was it him?” Miguel asked. He then paused and almost shouted, “You went to _El Barrio Viejo?!”_

 

“I followed him to a bar. He ordered a red drink. I got closer and it was Papá. I told the barman I’d have what he was having. I went up Papá, and grabbed his arm. And he looked at me.

 

“It was him. He looked the same as he had the day he left. Maybe a bit tired. He looked so surprised to see me, and said my name. I moved to get nearer to him, but then he moved away, like he was scared of me. He apologised. Then as I blinked he was gone.”

 

“Mamá Coco… Your Papá lost contact with you when you were four,” Miguel said. He then stopped, and looked at the _foto,_ an impossible thought resurfacing. He looked back at Mamá Coco, “Are you saying he’s somehow immortal?”

 

“Papá always sings to me!” Coco smiled.

 

Miguel blinked in surprise, “ _¿Que?_ What do you mean _….?_  

 

“He visits once a year, and sings our song,” Coco said. She hummed a slow, yet oddly familiar melody. Miguel was sure he had heard it before, but couldn’t place it.

 

Miguel heard a creak from the door. He waited breath held, in case Abuelita came storming in. He wasn’t sure how she’d react to Mamá Coco singing.

 

“Mamá Coco? You were at the bar?” Miguel prompted.

 

“The barman was watching me, now. So I drank. It was disgusting, like someone had tried to cover the taste of metal with lemon, and sugar. It wasn’t any normal drink. It tasted like blood,” Coco said, staring far away. “It took me a while, but I put it together in the end. I knew what he was...”

 

“What was he?” Miguel said. While he was unnerved by the story, he was holding onto every word from his _Tat_ _arabuela_ ’s mouth. Also this may help solve his mystery about the man. Either way it was obvious that Mamá Coco seemed to believe what she was saying.

 

“He was a vampire,” Mamá Coco said.

 

 _“¿Que?”_ Miguel said, belief evaporating like steam.  ... _Vampires?_

 

“Later that night I told Mamá. She said she didn’t believe me, but a few days later I saw her go out.  She came back a few hours later alone. We never spoke about it again. I wish he could come home.” 

 

Mamá Coco went quiet again.

 

“Vampires?” Miguel asked.

 

_“Si.”_

 

_“¿Que?”_

 

Mamá Coco looked at him, and smiled, “ _Buenos Dias_ , Julio.”

 

Miguel suddenly felt very numb, and sat down on the bed. He could only stare at the _fotos_. He mumbled “ _Buenos Dias_ Mama Coco.”

 

It had all been a story. There was no truth in it. Vampires weren’t real. The man in the _foto_ was just a trick of the light.There was nothing strange going on in _El Barrio Viejo._ There were no bars that sold blood. Mamá Coco must have been confused. This was ridiculous. It was all fiction. Mamá Coco told it to him to scare him. It wasn’t even that scary. It was all a story. Miguel wasn’t even a hundred percent sure she knew he was in the room with her. A simple boring story. Right?

 

However the man looked exactly the same in all three. How would he know anything about _El Barrio Viejo_ ? He had never been there.  Mamá Coco may be confused, but alzheimer’s had made her pretty good at remembering the time when she was younger. If it was a fantasy, why did it make so much sense? What did it mean? Why did these _fotos_ only ever seem to lead to more questions?

 

\--

 

Unbeknownst to Miguel at the time, he wasn’t the only person in his family who had heard Coco’s story. On the other side of the door, Rosa Rivera stood.  She had decided half an hour previously that lying in bed was not helping, and had gone down to ask could she help with food. After being coddled for twenty minutes, Abuelita had told  Rosa that while she didn’t want her to do much that night, she could get Mamá Coco and Miguel.

 

She had just been raising her hand to knock on Coco’s door, when she heard Miguel and Coco’s discussion.

 

Now having head the whole conversation, Rosa felt filled with a terrible cold dread. She stood completely still, panic rising within her again. She couldn’t move from where she had been standing. Her hand was still raised to get Miguel and Coco for dinner.

 

Their _Tatara abuelo_ was a vampire? Maybe. And Rosa could make things float with her mind. None of this made sense. None of this should make sense, and yet here’s where they were.

 

Rosa had no doubt Miguel would just believe it to be a story, but it was hard not to start believing in the impossible, when having done impossible things yourself.

 

After a moment, Rosa managed to calm her breath, and knocked on Mamá Coco’s door, and opened it.

 

The room was semi lit by the dying sun. Rosa noted that Miguel sat where the light from the window stopped. Everywhere from the place directly under the top half of his upper arm was in the light.

 

When Miguel saw her he stood up, stuffing something in his pocket, and smiled at her. The smile didn’t reach his eyes.

 

Rosa wondered what Miguel had stuffed in his pocket, before concluding it couldn’t be too important. Coco may have given him something. Maybe Rosa had been wrong about him not believing Coco. He was very close to her after all.

 

“Hi!” Miguel said.

 

“Hello,” Rosa said, throat dry.

 

“You’re feeling better?” Miguel said, as though he was trying to not sound too hopeful.

 

 _No, not really. My world is going mad, and I can float and explode things. Oh and our Tatara abuelo might be a vampire. Aside from that, amazing,_ she thought.

 

“A little,” Rosa lied smiling. She then added, “ _Abuelita_ said food is ready. Do you need help with Mamá Coco?”

 

Miguel shook his head, “No, I have her. If you could just lead the way and open the doors that would be great.”

 

Together the two primos guided Mamá Coco to the dining table, which was being laid up in the courtyard by Abel. Miguel sat down next to her, and started to natter on about something, but he kept trailing off, as though there was something on his mind.

 

Meanwhile, Rosa on autodrive walked into the kitchen, and helped bring things out. She halfheartedly listened to where _Abuelita_ asked her to put the items.

 

Then it was time for food. The family talked around her, but it was like she was in a bubble all by herself. Even the food she was eating for supper seemed textureless and bland. She was pretty sure it was her favourite too, but it tasted like flour.

 

After helping to clean up after supper she excused herself. She went upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door.

 

Like a clockwork figure, she lay out her clothes and school bag for the morning. When that was done, she found she no longer had something outside the bubble of shock to distract her, and she flopped on her bed, in the process flipping her phone off her bed.

 

Rosa glanced up at the vacant spot where the phone had been, before flumping her head back down into her duvet and groaning.

 

What did it mean?

 

\---

 

Later that night, Miguel couldn’t sleep.

 

His thoughts had been ignited by his conversation with Mamá Coco. His mind turned over what she had told him. He tried to think about the situation logically: Coco had seen a man who looked like her Papá. The drink had just so happened to taste like blood, but wasn’t. The man,  _who looked like her father,_  had kept to the dark because… he burned easily.

 

It was like how the man in the _fotos_ was just three very similar men. People didn’t go near _El Barrio Viejo_ because of crime. The mystical ideas were scientifically impossible, debunked years ago along with shapeshifters, magic and monsters. Of course it couldn’t be real, vampires were myths and legends.

 

But if they were impossible then why were there myths and legends?  Also Mamá Coco didn’t lie. The man in the three _fotos_ was the same man. How many drinks actively tried to taste like blood.  If there was so much crime in _El Barrio Viejo,_ why were there never any police seen?

 

Even as he tried to distract himself with homework, or texts from Mateo, Miguel knew it was futile. His brain just couldn’t grasp, or make sense any of the facts he knew, using normal human logic.

 

Eventually he gave up, and rolled into bed, halfheartedly texting Mateo who was screaming about a cartoon of a boy who was half alien, with a rock in his forehead. Miguel mused that the premise seemed almost boring in light of that week’s discoveries.

 

Miguel tried to get to sleep, but like a dog trying to chase a toy, his thoughts raced around his head.

 

At 2am, Miguel gave up the pretense of trying to sleep, and got out of bed. He shrugged on his red hoodie that he had flung on the floor earlier. He pulled out the three _fotos_ and put them in his school bag. Maybe it was time for a second opinion on this madness.

 

But the interim, some hot chocolate would do.

 

He opened the door, and slipped out the room. The corridor was dark, but familiar.  He made certain to avoid every creaky step an floorboard. Mamá had become a very restless sleeper now that she was pregnant. He was sure he had coughed  a few weeks ago and she had woken up. Quietly Miguel made his way to the kitchen

 

The kitchen was dark, and Miguel could barely make out the cabinets. However he had traversed this house so many times, he knew where to walk. He went over to the electric kettle (a present from his Papá to Abuelita after they had lost hot water and gas one winter), picked it up and walked to the sink.

 

He was in the process of filling the kettle up, when he heard the shuffling of slippers on the stone floor.

 

“Miguel?”

 

Miguel swore in surprise, but managed not to drop the kettle, _“¡Aye!_ Rosa! You made me jump out of my skin!”

 

“Sorry,” She said, sounding apologetic. “I guess I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep tonight.”

 

Miguel sighed, and glanced down at the kettle in his hands, and switched off the water.

 

“No,” He said quietly.

 

“It must be something in the air,” Rosa said quietly.

 

Miguel opened his mouth to say something sarcastic, before he closed it again. He was too tired, besides he remembered how pale Rosa had looked earlier that day, and added, “Rosa would you like a hot chocolate with me?”

 

Rosa was quiet for a moment, before saying “ _Sí_ , that would be nice, I think?”

 

They were quiet while they prepared the hot chocolates. Rosa pulled down two mugs and got two teaspoons from the draw. Meanwhile, Miguel rummaged through the back of the cupboard for hot chocolate mix. He would admit that he preferred Champurrado over hot chocolate, but that took an hour to make, and it was late enough already. He eventually found it just as the kettle boiled, and he heaped in a teaspoon and half of the mix into a mug, before handing the mix to Rosa.

 

Miguel turned, and leaned against the counter, stirring his drink. A moment later, Rosa did the same. They looked at each other’s outlines, before Rosa sat down on the floor, and Miguel followed suit.

 

For a moment, they were both quiet, both too wrapped up in their own thoughts. Rosa blew on her drink, before taking a sip.

 

The kitchen was quiet. It was weird to see it in the dark. It seemed too quiet, as though there was no one else in the house, and they were not just asleep. The kitchen may as well be a parallel world to the brightly lit bustling room it had been just a few hours ago. The shadows made the room seem both more peaceful, and more ominous. The quiet seemed too quiet, like the world was waiting for a piece of noise that would rouse the world.

 

Miguel set his hot chocolate on the floor next to him, and glanced at Rosa, “How are you feeling? I noticed that you’ve been quiet lately.”

 

Rosa looked up at him, before glancing down at the mug in her hands. “Do you remember the first time _Abuelita_ showed us where meat came from?”

 

Miguel grimaced, “Yeah.”

 

“Like that… but worse. Just there have been so many big, stressful and kinda scary things going on lately,” Rosa said,, voice shaking “I feel like a small child lost in the woods, but having just seen a cow be killed for the first time. But it’s worse... because it’s like world is becoming more gross. But so am I? Whatever the gross thing is, it’s inside me. There’s something insidious in side me, changing me… And I am scared,”.

 

Miguel pulled a face, “Is this to do with growing up or puberty? Or school work?”

 

“I wish it was school work,” Rosa said snorting. However there was no humour in her laugh. She shrugged, “I don’t know if it’s puberty or growing up both maybe? It’s hard to know. I am just scared and tired of all this change. Everyday the world just seems more complicated, like I am in a spider's web, but there is a mist obscuring the web. Then when the mist clears a bit, I see that I am above a giant chasm. Sometimes I feel like the prey, but... Sometimes... I think I am the spider, and that scares me, Miguel.”

 

Miguel was quiet for a moment, before saying, “I don’t think you’re a spider. You’re not scary, not to me. You can be bossy sometimes, but you’re can actually sometimes be nice. And you’re really loyal. You don’t purposefully try to hurt people, unless they hurt you or me first. Heck you’re the smart one out of us _primos,_ you actually like _escuela_. But if that is making it worse… then you’ll still be my _prima_. Not a monster, just my prima who likes hot drinks in summer and don’t forget that… What I am trying to say is that you don’t suck.”

 

“I won’t, and thanks. You don’t suck either,”  Rosa said, sounding happier. “Anyway why are you a member of the 2am club?”

 

“...It’s a club now?” Miguel said confused.

 

“Yep, totally a club,” Rosa said, nudging him.

 

Miguel jokingly stroked his chin, “Club goal: find cookies…”

 

“...Or where Tía Gloria hides the _Pan de Muerto_!” Rosa added.

 

“Yeah, I would probably die for some _Pan de Muerto_ right now,” Miguel said.

 

This caused Rosa to chuckle, and Miguel felt pleased that he had got her to laugh if only briefly.

 

There was a comforting quiet as the two _primos_ enjoyed their hot chocolate. The quiet friendly peace was rarely an opportunity the _primos_ enjoyed in each other’s presence. It was a nice change.

 

“...But really why are you awake?” Rosa asked after a few minutes.

 

Miguel sighed, and looked down at his mug. He tried to work out what to say. He eventually decided that in this case it was best to go for a less embellished version of the truth.

 

“I- I recently saw something im- difficult to explain. Really it’s one of those you had to see it to believe it things. Whenever I try to rationalise it, the rationalisation doesn’t fit. Then when I go looking for other answers, they just raise bigger questions. It’s like everytime I try to understand it, the more it feels like I have walked into something bigger than me. And it’s scary, because if it’s right, it would be like learning we could walk on clouds,” Miguel said shrugging.

 

Rosa was quiet for a bit, “I know what you mean. Like I said with the spider web analogy, it’s scary, and makes the world much more uncertain... and nonsensical.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“I don’t think you’d… No, not really.”

 

“Miguel… you sound like you think you found something big. If you have, I will believe you and help you if you need me. I am not going to tell you to stay away, but stay safe, ok? The world is scary, and dangerous… but at the moment… don’t go looking for trouble ok? Don’t go chasing shadows into the dark. Don’t run into danger, ok?”

 

Miguel nodded. He had no intention to die. He just wanted to find out who the man in the _foto_ was.

 

“Ok. Thanks Rosa,” He said voice shaking.

 

“Anytime."

 

They went back to quiet reflection again.

 

Miguel was glad his cousin supported him. It made him feel a little less alone in this mess. He just wished there was a way he could take her up on the offer to help. That’s when an idea popped into his head.

 

He turned to Rosa, and at the same time she turned to him, they said simultaneously, “I have something to tell you.”

 

“You go first,” Rosa said.

 

“No, you,” Miguel responded.

 

“No, yo- we’ll be at this for a while if I don’t go now, won’t we?” 

 

“Yeah, probably.”

 

“Umm… ok I need to tell you, I heard you earlier with Mamá Coco."

 

“Ok….”

 

“I mean when she was talking about vampires.”

 

“Oh… how much did you hear?”

 

“I head from when she saw her… our.. She saw her Papá near _El Puente Viejo_ to the end.”

 

“Oh… Ok. Do you think it’s real?” Miguel asked curious.

 

Rosa was quiet for a moment, before laughing loudly, “Pfft! No, vampires in Santa Cecilia? Unlikely.”

 

Miguel internally felt like a balloon that had been popped. Rosa thought it was just a story. He forced himself to laugh too, because despite the potential proof of the _fotos_ it did seem ridiculous. He just wished he could think of a sensible explanation for them.

 

“Yeah, it’s obviously just a story she told me to scare me,” Miguel said.

 

“Yeah probably, I mean her illness does make her more confused,” Rosa said.

 

“I guess.”

 

“Wait, you had something you wanted to tell me?” Rosa said.

 

“It wasn’t important,” Miguel shrugged. He then picked up his empty mug and got up.

 

“Oh, Ok,” Rosa said quietly

 

“We should probably go to bed. We have school... in 4 hours,” Miguel said, squinting at the kitchen clock.

 

“Oh crap, you’re right,” Rosa said

 

Together they rinsed out their mugs, and bid each other goodnight. As Miguel turned to leave Rosa turned back, and said, “It goes without saying that we’d kick each other’s ass, if any else finds out about this conversation, right?”

 

Miguel smiled. Something may change, but others always stayed the same.

 

“Yep!” He said and left.

 

A few minutes late he fell back into bed, Miguel still felt as frustrated and clueless in regards to the _fotos._

 

However, something about his conversation with Rosa had reassured him. Even if she scoffed at the idea of vampires, he think he knew another who wouldn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UMMM, so I hope you like it? I think this chapter answered some questions someone raised. Also to the commenter who liked how Rosa had a slightly more proactive role with Miguel, plot twist she’s one of the five main POV characters of this story?
> 
> Also as to why the kids are talking about Pan de Muerto, it's a fortnight before El Día de Muertos.
> 
> As I said before, comments: I love them! They make my day.
> 
> A little bit of housekeeping, I am going to see a friend on the weekend, so I may need to miss next week’s upload. :( However, I will try my damned hardest to get that chapter up and ready for next week. If I can’t make it, I will make a post on tumblr on Monday night (UK time), but hopefully I will have the next chapter finished by next week.
> 
> Next chapter we turn back again… and again… and again to 1921. 
> 
> Have a nice day! :)


	4. Flashback I: This is the Ending of a Beautiful Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Héctor gets some bad news, and makes decisions.
> 
> Meanwhile Ernesto makes a Plan B.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T I am super sorry I am two weeks behind. I have had some stupidly busy weeks, and a guest over which meant as well as keeping up with this fic a lot of other aspects of my life got pushed back. 
> 
> However, I intend to do two things to make it up with you guys.  
> One, on unless something big happens, Saturday night I am going to attempt to do a livestream from 8pm-ish to 10pm-ish GMT on my twitch channel. I will answer questions if people want, talk about TV shows, books, music or my cat. The channel is under the same name.(I may go on for shorter or later depending on how I feel). I will probably either be drawing or playing a game while I talk to you guys.
> 
> Two, I am going to double post two times. That unfortunately won’t be this week, as I am still in headless chicken mode, and it may not be next week, but at some point I will do that. 
> 
> Also this chapter is a rather robust 9,500+ words.
> 
> As always I love the support this fic gets.
> 
> **Trigger Warnings for this chapter** : In depth descriptions of illness, attempted murder and emotional manipulation.
> 
> And with that let’s go back to the past
> 
> (( _“23-8-1-20 8-1-16-16-5-14-5-4 14-5-24-20? 9 1-13 7-21-5-19-19-9-14-7 25-15-21 20-1-12-11-5-4, 2-21-20… 13-3-22?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“L qhhg wr wdon derxw klp, grq’w L?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“...25-5-1-8, 9 13-5-1-14 9-20’19 15-14-5 8-5-12-12 15-6 1 2-15-13-2-19-8-5-12-12 20-15 4-18-15-16 15-14 13-5… 25-15-21 4-15-14’20 8-1-22-5 20-15 4-15 9-20 1-12-12 1-20 15-14-3-5 20-8-15-21-7-8. 9 13-5-1-14 9 3-1-14 11-5-5-16 21-16.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Rn, vr wkh bhdu zdv 1921…”_ ))

**TW: hospitals, some derogatory slurs, illness and mentions of murder**

 

**1921**

Ernesto de la Cruz didn’t like thinking of his best friend as a burden, but recently that was the best term to describe him. These days, the  _ idiota _ never shut up about his damn family. Somehow, a nagging wife and whiny slobbery little brat were more important than everyone else.  

 

When, for some reason, Héctor had started to make noise about going home, and leaving him, Ernesto had been horrified

 

Did the  _ imbécil _ not realise how selfish he was? The  _ hombre-niño _ was ready to hide away his amazing music from the world, all because he couldn’t handle the tour going on slightly longer than it should have.

 

It had been lucky therefore, two months into the tour, Ernesto had found some insurance growing on the side of the tracks in Guadalajara. The plant, when combined with a lesson from a rather interesting  _ profesor de ciencias, _ should work should  _ Tetotito _ start getting cold feet.  _ Profe  _ Sendoa always had been keen on poisons --Most people had found it ‘weird’ and ‘dangerous’, Ernesto had always appreciated the man’s fascination with death. It had been oddly refreshing. 

 

He had always been very good at cooking. He had been even better at the  _ clase de quimica  _ he had taken when the  _ ejército  _ had rolled into town for a year. He had been forced to take  the class by the nuns in the hope he would choose not to be a  _ musico _ . They had been so happy when they realised he had enjoyed it. They had been less so when the army left leaving a 15 year old with a dangerous knowledge of  _ productos químicos. _

 

Meanwhile, the poison had been surprisingly a lot easier to prepare than he expected. He hadn’t even felt too bad about the fan whom the fumes had left vomiting on the floor of her  _ baño _ . That said it had been annoying to burn his clothes. It had been even easier to pass of his feverous cough as a simple case of the flu. His friend was so unperceptive sometimes.

 

...Then the  _ traidor _ had snuck off behind his back, and bought that stupid ticket. So Ernesto decided to give his friend something extra in his  _ tortilla chorizo  _ and maybe an extra dose in his goodbye drinks, and that should have been the end of that. Except the  _ tonto _ couldn’t even die properly.

 

A day later, Ernesto had been happily booking into their next hotel, Hector’s- his guitar on his shoulder, when a telegram had arrived from  _ Hospital de Jesús Nazareno _ back in Mexico City. It said that an  _ oficial de policía _ had found his friend, and taken him to the hospital. They had managed to revive him, and while his situation was still incredibly perilous, his recovery looked promising.

 

Ernesto was furious. Did that selfish  _ idiota _ even care that they- Ernesto was missing a show, because he had somehow been rescued? That was always Héctor, he only ever caused problems, and then left everyone else to sort his problems out. He never did anything himself. It served Héctor right to be in hospital, after all of the fuss he had caused. 

 

What police officer had he harassed? Why had they even cared? Of course, they never cared whenever he needed them, but all Héctor had to flutter his ridiculous eyelashes, and people always were ready to help him. Anyway, everyone knew that police officers were corrupt, and lazy and rude. Ernesto would probably laugh if a police officer ever managed to work out how he did it. Useless bunch of  _ cerdos! _

 

At first, Ernesto considered ignoring the telegram, but fifteen years of instincts told him to go find his friend, and he guessed along with a remnant of his concern for the man after he had betrayed him. Also a small, scared part of Ernesto wondered guiltily how much Hector remembered, or had deduced.

 

So the next day, Ernesto canceled the rest of that location's shows, and took the train back to the City. Considering the cost of his ticket, he had decided to walk from the train station the two and a half miles to the hospital. 

 

Ernesto walked down the cramped, bustling streets of  _ Ciudad Mexico _ . The entire journey he was jostled, and carried along by the never-ending, unremarkable tide of people. All of the cafes and bars he passed were full of constantly moving people, who nattered and chattered. Even the shops seemed to buzz with human activity. 

 

Eventually, he rounded the corner, and saw the hospital. It was a large imposing stone building, with large arched doors. On one corner of the hospital there was a tower, with a dome at the top. On the dome there was an image of a young man with long flowing red-brown hair, that could possibly be an angel. Coupled with the dark shadow of the hospital building, the face made Ernesto feel small, and very uncomfortable. 

 

When he had entered the hospital he had wanted to throw up. He loathed hospitals. It smelled horrible, like medicine, alcohol, human waste and decay combined. It made him want to throw up, which left a bitter trace in his mouth. There was also a peculiar floral smell in the air which was a lot more pleasant, but was nearly drowned out by the rest of the smell. The whole place could do with a renovation, the plaster was cracked and chipped in several places from the peach walls. One of the window panes was missing glass, and the noise from the city shambled in. To his left, in the overcrowded waiting room there were people coughing, and vomiting. Meanwhile a small child wailed like a siren, and a young woman sobbed loudly like a skipping record. However, jarringly he could also hear water running in the background.

 

After talking to one of the prettier women, even if she had bucked teeth, at reception, he knew where Héctor‘s ward was, and he set off to find him. 

 

En route to Héctor’s ward, he passed through an archway, and walked into a cloister. There he found the source of the nice smell, and running water. On either side of the cloister he saw two rather fancy courtyards. In one, there were a pair of men in wheelchairs playing chess. In the other, two women were talking quietly, while another woman was reading in the sun. As he turned right onto a cloister surrounding the courtyard the men were in, he couldn’t help but look up and notice the imposing face on the dome again. 

 

Ernesto swallowed. The face on the dome made him uneasy.

 

After exiting the cloister, Ernesto found Hector’s ward easily. It was towards the back of the hospital, in one of the more quiet parts. Here the halls were mostly full of stern looking doctors. There was barely any noise, except for maybe a cough. 

 

Héctor’s bed was hidden from view by the closed screens of another patient.

 

For the first time Ernesto felt frightened. Héctor may be naive, but he wasn’t that stupid. If the man suspected anything he would not let it go. If he had somehow guessed, it would take one call to the  _ oficials des policía _ , and Ernesto would be finished.

 

For a moment he questioned the wisdom of attempting to poison his best friend.

 

_ It’s only attempted because the estupido can’t even die properly. Get a grip, he’s Héctor, he’s harmless, and will suspect nothing. _

 

Still, he had to be careful. Before entering the ward, Ernesto begrudgingly plastered on his most worried, concerned face. If Héctor suspected him in any way, he didn't need to tip him off further, even if he right now all he wanted to do was strangle the man and his stupid family.

 

However, as soon as Ernesto entered the ward, he realised that there was no need to do any acting, Hector was fast asleep, or at the very least he was unconscious. The  _ perezoso _ was dressed in some crisp, clean, hospital pyjamas, lying on an incredibly comfortable looking bed. While he did look a bit pale, he didn’t look too bad... or at least any worse than the time he glandular fever. Perhaps he did look a bit more tired than usual, but not too bad. Maybe his skin seemed tinged a faint green, but he still looked ok. His already skinny frame seemed only a little bit worse than usual. The man was fine.

 

Immediately the concerned frown turned into a distasteful glare. Ernesto seriously debated simply leaving Héctor to rot here, and going on without him. Except people had seen him arrive, and if he left, Héctor would want to know why he didn’t stay. It would raise questions, and make him suspicious. Eventually, that might even tip off Héctor about the true nature of his illness. 

 

Ernesto walked over, coming to a stop at the bottom of the bed. He scowled down derisively at its occupant’s sleeping face.

 

For a best friend, Héctor really wasn’t worth the hassle. He couldn’t do anything properly, and didn’t he realise that his obsession with that stupid backwater town, and his stupid provincial family was destroying their friendship? Their dreams of performing for the world? 

 

Ernesto wondered idly whether he could try to kill him again, but he wasn't alone on the ward. He didn't think being caught, by a doctor, smothering the man would look that good. If only there were a way he could force the man to ingest poison again, but alas the hospital would probably notice, and trace it back to him. Then he would be in trouble. He wondered if he could sneak in poisoned tequila in, however... send it under the guise of a fan.

 

After twenty minutes of standing at the foot of the bed, glaring at Héctor, while stewing in his conundrum, Ernesto sat down in the chair next to the bed. After a long ten minutes, he decided to carefully put Hector’s belongings on the edge of the bed. Morbidly, he was reminded of a  _ fóto _ of a dead relative on an  _ offrenda _ .

 

_ Like he should be. Just not on my own. Not after this. _ Ernesto swallowed, still worried that the unconscious man remembered anything.

 

Ernesto sat there for an incredibly long hour. It was the most anxious, boring and most uncomfortable wait of his existence.

 

Eventually, slowly, Héctor began to wake up. As soon as the man’s eyes opened, Ernesto forced his features back into that of a worried and concerned friend’s, not that of a man who had been betrayed by his nearest and dearest friend.

 

_ “¡Aye, Dios mio, Mi Amigo! ¿Qué pasó? _ ” Ernesto said, grabbing hold of Héctor’s hand. The man was barely awake yet, but Ernesto needed to know what the other man knew or suspected.

 

“Ernesto? Where did you go?" Héctor asked weakly, slurring his words. His bleary eyes were barely able to make contact with Ernesto's own. 

 

“Aye, I was looking for a doctor for you! I hated it, but I had to leave you. I was so worried! I took your guitar and song book, which I know you value, so that no vagabonds could steal it! Then, when I came back you had gone!’ Ernesto said.

 

"I was really sick.  _ Dios mío _ , I felt like I was dying! I think I ate something not good... I asked where you were, but you were gone...?” Héctor's voice croaked slightly as he trailed off .

 

Ernesto then began to add to this by crying, “Héctor,  _ mi amigo _ ... I thought you were gone. I couldn’t bare to think...!”

 

Héctor looked at Ernesto distraught and concerned, “No  _ hermano _ ! It’s ok, I’m here! I haven’t gone anywhere.”

 

_ The idiota! No way was this man this stupid! He really thought... He hadn't even realised had he. What niño estúpido! _ Ernesto had to stop himself from laughing with joy at how his luck had turned out. 

 

Instead, Ernesto sobbed, adding a hint of joy and relief to his tone, “ _Si!_ _Mi hermanito_ is ok now, but you’re still in hospital? How will I perform without you?”

 

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” Héctor smiled weakly, unaware he had repeated the same line from two night ago. 

 

Suddenly Héctor had a coughing fit. The force of it, pushing him forward, curling him in on himself. Héctor coughed and coughed until he gagged. He flailed wildly, before he wretched into a bucket by his bed. The vomit was brown, and stank. He then coughed, gagged and spluttered. He then shook himself as though he had eaten a lemon, and hugged his sides. He whimpered as he lay back down.

 

While Héctor was distracted, Ernesto let the facade drop. Irritated, he rolled his eyes at his friend’s theatrics. Ernesto understood the meaning of them: Héctor was ill, he wanted attention. Ernesto immediately recovered the benevolent, concerned face the moment Héctor looked back up at him with tired eyes. The look made Ernesto feel uncomfortable, and very guilty, but he wasn’t sure what for. He hadn’t forced the man to digest the poison.

 

If he suspected nothing, there was no need to tip him off.

 

Héctor looked at Ernesto worried, “Does ‘Melda know yet? She must be so worried!  _ Dios mio _ , what am I going to say to my wife?”

 

Ernesto eyes widened, and he nearly screamed. As it was, he was sure his face involuntarily twitched, resisting the urge to punch the man. The man had nearly died! Yet all he still wanted to talk about his stupid family. Didn’t Héctor realise that there was some things much more important than his wife and the brat.

 

“It all happened so fast... I haven’t told them yet,” Ernesto said.

 

Héctor’s face fell, “They are going to be so worried! Please Ernesto, you must send a letter, or something. Ernesto, I need you more than ever, outside my family you are my best friend.”

 

Héctor suddenly wheezed, and began coughing violently. As he did, a small amount of bloody phlegm landed on Héctor‘s handkerchief. Surprised, Ernesto stared at the man, wondering whether he really was going to die anyway.

 

He tried not to get his hopes up. 

 

"They took some tests, I thought I had food poisoning, but they think it's something else. I won't know until tomorrow," Héctor said rasping.

 

"Well, let's hope you get better," Ernesto said, gently slapping Héctor's face. 

 

“How did you know I was here?” Héctor asked.

 

“The hospital sent a telegram to... where I was staying, and I came at once for you,  _ mi amigo _ !” Ernesto said, with fake bravado.

 

Héctor laughed at that, but it quickly became a cough.

 

Ernesto waited for Héctor to finish, by staring at the wall ahead of him. He wanted to cry from inanity of this situation.

 

Héctor opened his mouth again to talk, but he was cut off by a gentle cough from the end of the bed. Both men turned and saw a young doctor was standing there.

 

“ _ ¡Buenos Dias, Señor Rivera! _ I have your medication. You have to take it now, or it might not be as effective,” the doctor said cheerily, holding a small tray of medications.

 

“ _ Si Doctor. Gracias, _ ” Héctor said. He then glanced at Ernesto.”Ernesto...?”

 

Ernesto, desperate to leave the uncomfortable situation, nodded at Héctor “It’s ok Teto, I will come back, I want to go look at some coffee that they are selling in the mercado. _ ¡Hasta luego, amigo!” _

 

“Si, Ernesto,  _ hasta luego _ ,” Héctor nodded. 

 

Awkwardly, Ernesto patted Héctor’s shoulder. 

 

While Héctor was being cared for Ernesto stood up so that he could leave. 

 

Héctor‘s hand shot out, and grabbed his wrist, weakly. Ernesto looked at his friend surprised. 

 

“Ernesto, If you get a chance... Please? Tell my wife...?” The man said, voice shaking, looking worried. He then whimpered, “Ernesto, I need you more than ever. Outside my family you are my best friend.”

 

Swallowing, Ernesto nodded, and he left. Ernesto all but stumbled out of the ward.

 

He was sure that he couldn’t be caught.  Wasn’t the entire point of  _ Profe _ Sendoa’s joke been that this type of poison was hard to track. Even if as Ernesto had discovered it was as slow as Eulalia García had been after the Easter dance. 

 

Ernesto hit himself on the temple with his wrist a couple of times. 

 

_ “iPedejo! iPedejo! iPedejo!”  _ Ernesto muttered. He sighed angrily, and stomped down the corridor and out through the door, into a woman carrying a massive pile of papers, scattering the everywhere. 

 

Instinctively, Ernesto dived down to help the woman tidy up her papers. 

 

When he was done, he handed his pile back to her. 

 

“ _¡Ah, Muchas_ _Graçias Señor!”_ The nurse smiled at him. He only then noticed her appearance. Even Ernesto was a bit attracted to her dark brown -nearly red hair was pulled into a tight bun. She a small button nose, which contrasted spectacularly with her high cheekbones. Her round face was almost sweet, and she had gentle brown eyes. 

 

Ernesto put on his most beautiful smile, and looked at the woman,  _ “¡No hay problema para una mujer hermosa!” _

 

“You are too kind,” The woman said politely. She then held her hand out, and Ernesto saw a wedding band on her hand. “Also I am happily married.”

 

“Ah,” Ernesto said, feeling uncomfortable.

 

“It’s ok,  _ Señor, _ ” The woman laughed, tapping his arm. 

 

“Uh, de la Cruz… Ernesto de la Cruz,” Ernesto said. “And what’s your name,  _ Señora _ ?” 

 

“Igrena,” the woman said putting her hand on her hip. As she did, she moved slightly to her left, and he saw the tower with it’s creepy face staring down at him. The vacant, yet intense eyes watched him, as though judging him for damnation.

 

Igrena saw him looking behind her, and glanced behind her, and then followed his gaze up to the top of the tower. 

 

“Who… What is that?”

 

“Hmm, oh that! That is  _ San Miguel _ , the angel of sickness and death… and mariners, and police officers, and grocers,” The nurse said. 

 

Ernesto, who had been walking towards the railing of the cloister, glanced at her. “That was oddly specific.” 

 

“He is one of the more popular saints. I guess, It’s better than being the patron saint of accountants, or tax collectors, I guess,” Igrena shrugged. “A lot of people think it’s Cortez.”

 

“The  _ Conquistador _ ? ¿ _ Por qué?”  _ Ernesto yelped surprised. 

 

“There was rumour long ago that he was buried in the church attached to the hospital. I doubt it,” Igrena rolled her eyes. “He’s probably buried in some fancy cave with gold gilded walls taken straight from our ancestors, with  _ La Malinche  _ besides him to take death’s throne from beneath him.” 

 

“That’s a strong opinion.”

 

“I don’t like people who claim to be above others and decide they are king’s of other people’s land.”

 

“Ironic.”

 

“ _ ¿Pardones? _ ”

 

“Your name-”

 

“Doesn’t have a basis on my political opinions. Is every Jésus the son of god? No,” Igrena shrugged. “Anyway, nice to meet you, Señor Ernesto.”

 

“And you too, Señora Igrena,” Ernesto said staring at the image of San Miguel’s face, as the nurse walked away. The saint continued to watch him, his vacant judgement seeming more uncomfortable and more damning by the moment. As Ernesto watched, the partly obscured sun shone down briefly on the  _ Santo’s  _ face, illuminating it in red light.

 

Ernesto looked away, uncomfortable. He needed to get away from this hospital. He needed to get away from Héctor, and his amazing recovery, and away from San Miguel, and his vacant judging eyes. He needed to think. He needed to regroup and plan what he was to do with Héctor now. He needed somewhere quiet to think, but first he needed to find some lodgings.

____

 

Hector didn’t really remember much about his first few days at the hospital. The days seemed to pass him by as he drifted in and out of unconsciousness. When he was conscious, he still felt like he was like he was floating on a cloud far from his body, watching it idly from far away. The only thing that pierced his hazy apathetic state was the gruelling agony of his body.

 

As it was he was only vaguely became aware of Ernesto reappearing on the fourth day of his stay at hospital. When had he arrived? Had it been the second day? Or the third? Either way, he had been very relieved to see a friendly face, amongst the sea of people in stark white. Even if he was a little vague on how he got there.

 

When Héctor became more conscious of his body, he wish he hadn’t. His insides felt like hell. He was sure that this amount of pain had to be the end. He wasn’t sure how he survived those days looking back. Later on, when he had experienced other supposedly worse physical pains, those days of dying always struck him as worse.

 

Héctor’s throat was a blistered foul-tasting grated mess. His voice sounded like his voice box had been shoved against a grinder. It didn’t help, that no amount of water seemed to soothe the raspiness, or the pain in his throat. Half the time blood would come up instead of words, and he would cough with every new word.

 

By the third day he was pretty sure he had vomited everything in his stomach, and more. He was so hungry, and felt a familiar  pain in a stomach he hadn’t felt since he was a boy. However, his appetite was non-existent. It felt as though a rotten worm had made its way into his abdomen and was chewing on his intestines and stomach. Occasionally, he’d wretch up something new, and it left the disgusting taste of rotten egg and something sweet but bitter in his mouth. He felt like his stomach was full of liquid fire. When he lay down it would go up his esophagus and burn it to ash. He could barely drink without retching.Often his insides were so loud, he swore he could hear them groaning like they were a separate entity

 

He was humiliated by how he would wake up having soiled himself in his sleep. Once or twice, he noticed blood on his sheets too, and tried not to think where that came from. His stomach was in so much pain he was actually sure at one point he had been punched. 

 

Even though he was so hungry, the doctors would only give him water. Despite his irritation, they denied him food, and only gave him water until he was better. Eventually he found that he was too thirsty to care and would drink several glasses of water in one go. 

 

He had definitely slept for the longer than he had since Coco had been born. Irritatingly, he still felt tired. It was like he was rolling a wheel up a hill, not lying in a bed. His head felt light headed, which seemed to only increase his fatigue, and make his body feel heavier. Th lightheadedness made him more parched, but this contrasted with it’s other effect which was the dizziness which made him want to retch. 

 

On top of all this, he had somehow developed a head cold while at the hospital, and did his best to keep himself covered away from biting cold, only to find moments later he was boiling in his own sweat. Several times he would try to sit up, only to be held down by nausea. This terrified him, and more than once, doctors found him a shaking mess in his bed.

 

However, worst of all, he just wanted to go home. He wanted to see his daughter and wife. He missed Imelda, even her anger seemed preferable to this torture. He missed her passionate but reassuring eyes, and her mind sharper than a sword. He missed his daughter’s smile, and how it would light up her face, leaving Héctor feeling like he could climb the tallest towers to grab the stars.

 

He was sure if he could get back to Santa Cecilia, everything would be ok. This illness made him more desperate than eve.  Thus the entire time he was at hospital he wept, dreading the thought that this illness would result in his death, and he wouldn’t get the chance to see his family before then. Once or twice a nurse doing her rounds would sit with him, and soothe him out of the panicked agitated mess he would become, and remind him that he was safe. 

 

After five days of the unrelenting hell that was the illness, Hector woke up to find his head felt clearer, and he felt moderately better. It was peculiar, but he didn’t care. 

 

He sobbed in relief. The sensation of floating, of being locked away, only to return to hell, had ended. Slowly through the day, he began to come back to his body, and became more aware of his situation.

 

He was still tired, and would still occasionally throw up, but for the most part he was better. His body still felt like it had been hit by a train, and he was banned from walking after he had tried to walk and landed face first on the floor. The only thing that never seemed to want to get any better was the rasp in his throat. Anytime he started to talk, he usually ended up coughing, and in the phlegm there was usually blood.

 

Once he was out of the worst of the illness -a week after he was admitted to the hospital- a Doctor who Hector had become very well acquainted with, came and asked Héctor would he like to come visit him in his office the next day. He even extended a rather terse invitation to Ernesto when he visited later that day. The doctor claimed Ernesto could come as ‘support’ for Héctor. Although that sounded more like an order than a request. Either way, this made Héctor anxious about the meeting.

 

The next day as the hours whittled down both too fast and too slowly, Héctor couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the upcoming appointment. Despite Ernesto’s best attempts to cheer him up, he didn’t seem to be faring better. He would occasionally look around the room like a caged animal, although Héctor could only guess why, when it wasn’t him lying in a hospital bed. 

 

Héctor had ran over every possibility in his head. Perhaps the doctor wanted to congratulate him on surviving whatever that was. Maybe he had a new prescription he wanted Héctor to try? Possibly Héctor had an unbeatable disease, or he was patient zero in a new pandemic. What if due to the illness, and he was stuck in the hospital, and he’d never get to go home? Maybe there had been a complication with his illness. Maybe he was dying. 

 

Then all too soon it was 3pm, and it came time to move him into a wheelchair.

 

Héctor stared at the contraption for a while, dreading getting inside. He felt uncomfortable in it, vulnerable and incredibly exposed. Not in the way he would feel on stage, the opposite of that if anything. Also he didn’t like being pushed around in it, but until he could rebuild his arm strength, he had little choice. Now that he was given the choice to move, but was confined to that chair… He found he was quite happy in the bed. There was a gnawing in his stomach that if he got inside that chair, nothing good would happen. 

 

Héctor, eventually shook his head. He smiled shakily at Ernesto, who was staring at the chair with an equal amount of dread. He had fallen quiet half an hour earlier, and had been staring blankly at the wall ahead of him. 

 

“We could always not go?” Ernesto said quietly.

 

Héctor sighed, “No. Eventually, we’d need to face the music.”

 

“I- If we must,” Ernesto said voice faltering. Héctor had known him long enough that he could tell how scared his friends.

 

_ If whatever is wrong with me is permanent, it will be the end of my career.  _

 

Slowly, with a lot of grumbling, the two of them  clumsily managed to position Héctor into the wheelchair. It was a situation that neither of them enjoyed, and Ernesto did look quite relieved when a nurse with dark brown-red hair tied into a tight bun took over. Once she was finished, she smiled at Héctor, and muttered some choice insults at Ernesto. 

 

Ernesto rolled his eyes, and grabbed hold of the handles of the chair, and maneuvered Héctor out of the ward.

 

As they moved down the peach corridor, Héctor was reminded horribly of the time one of the nuns had found a rabid dog at the back of the  _ orfanato _ , and had shot it in the head. He felt like that dog now, looking at a gun. He could almost taste the ominous foreboding in the air.

 

“I am sure it’s nothing,” Héctor said.

 

“Hopefully,” Ernesto said quietly.

 

They stopped at a solid oak door. It was one of several. They would only have guessed the right door by the wooden name plaque by the door. They glanced at each other. Ernesto then cleared his throat and knocked firmly on the door.

 

“Come in!” A voice called. 

 

Ernesto swung opened the door, and helped wheel Héctor in. Once he was inside, Ernesto closed the door.

 

The room was partly decorated. There were a few bookshelves propped against a wall which was painted an ugly green which was peeling from the walls. In the centre of the room was an overcrowded desk surrounded by overflowing manila files. This was resting on a medium sized carpet. On their side of the desk was a lone wooden chair, which Héctor indicated to Ernesto. Héctor spied another, mismatched chair pushed against the wall, next to the door they entered in through -probably for patients who didn’t come with their own chair.

 

Ernesto sat down in the chair, back ramrod straight. On the other side of the desk sat the doctor. The man was in his late 50’s or early 60 and had an air of seniority about him. Héctor felt like he was in the  _ la director’s _ office. His bald head, and solemn thin pinched face which reminded him of a skull. 

The doctor sat leaning back in his chair. His body was relaxed, with his hands linked on the desk in front of him. In front of him was a file in a manila folder. The doctor maintained eye contact with Héctor, smiling at him gently.

 

“ _ Ah ¡Buenos Días, Señor Rivera! ¡Señor de la Cruz! ¿Cómo estás? _ ” The doctor smiled.

 

“I am well! Just wondering why you wanted to see my friend and I,  _ Doctor!”  _ Ernesto said a little too loudly, with too much fake enthusiasm. 

 

The doctor looked at him, one grey eyebrow pointedly raised.

 

“Not as bad as I felt last week,”  Hector said, truthly. Admittedly, he still felt terrible, but he didn’t feel any worse, so he felt there had been some improvement. 

 

“¡ _ Bueno!”  _ The doctor said cheerfully. He then sighed and said in a less cheerful voice, “So Héctor what do you know of your condition so far?”

 

Héctor bit his lip.  _ Condition? What did that mean? What…was wrong with him? _

 

Héctor glanced at Ernesto, who looked back, alarmed. 

 

“Nothing  _ Señor _ . One moment I was fine, the next I felt like my innards were being chewed. I thought it was food poisoning. It felt like food poisoning. Although I usually don’t feel this bad afterwards. Why? What is wrong with me?”

 

This time it was the doctor who looked uncomfortable. Albeit the grimace passed almost immediately.

 

“Mr Rivera, I have some bad news for you. We, as in my colleagues and I, believe you were poisoned not by badly made food, but intentionally,” The doctor said. “Your symptoms seemed too severe for food poisoning, so we tested your blood. As it was, we were right: there were no traces of food poisoning in your system. Instead we believe you were poisoned. Whatever this  poison was can mimic the effects of food poisoning, but on a more severe scale.”

 

Héctor felt the bottom fall out of his stomach.

 

_ Poisoned…? What…? _

 

Next to him, Ernesto’s hands tightened on the arm of the chair. Ernesto gasped, horrified, “Poison? Are you sure  _ Doctor _ ? Is this a joke?” 

 

“ _ Lo Siento… ¿Que?”  _ Héctor said, unable to comprehend what he had just heard.

 

_ Poison? Him? _

 

“Again,  _ lo Siento, Señor,  _ but we do indeed you’ve been poisoned. Intentionally. Unfortunately, whatever the poison was, as has long since left your system. However, we are trying everything to find out which poison it was.  However, whatever it was, the worst of it’s damage has been done,” The doctor said, leaning forward. 

 

“Damage?” Héctor croaked. 

 

“Unfortunately, yes. Most of your internal organs only survived with moderate damage, with exception to your liver. By the time we knew what was happening, it was too late,” The doctor said. “ _ Lo Siento  _ Héctor.”

 

“How? Why? What…?” Héctor said sobbing.

 

“Are you sure that you don’t know what it is?” Ernesto asked thoughtfully.

 

“No,  _ lo siento Señor-”   _ The doctor began.

 

“Who would want to poison me? I have done nothing? I have nothing?” Héctor mumbled to himself.

 

“That’s not good enough!” Ernesto said standing up slamming both hands down on the desk. “You say you think that Héctor was poisoned? But you don’t know what did it? What sort of cheap  _ scientifico  _ are you? My best friend’s life has been destroyed… and you just sit there?!”

 

“Ernesto…”  Héctor said quietly.

 

“Señor de la Cruz, I am going to have to ask you to refrain from shouting at me. I will have you removed from the premises. Also your behaviour may stress out Héctor,” The doctor said cooly. 

 

Ernesto sighed angrily, before sitting down.

 

“Listen, I know that you’re upset, confused and angry, and I truly truly sympathise with you Señor Rivera. However, we are lucky, you were brought in and treated before any other serious damage happened. As it is, we are lucky, and there are ways to treat him, with medication and therapies,” The doctor said.

 

“I… Can be cured?” Héctor asked.

 

“We can help,” The doctor said. He then sighed. “I have one more bit of bad news for you.”

 

“ _ ¿Sí?”  _ Héctor said preparing himself for the worst.  _ What next? He had to stay in Ciudad de Mexico?  _

 

“Your occupation is listed travelling  _ musicos? _ I think you may need to find another career,” The doctor said.

 

_ “¡¿Que?!”  _ Ernesto said, moving to get up again. Héctor put an arm out, the last thing he needed was Ernesto being an idiot right now.

 

“Yes, a symptom of a liver as damaged as your own is that often the patient develops a tremor in their hands. This would make playing any instrument incredibly difficult. Also due to the fact the poison was ingested, we are lead to believe the damage you can hear in Señor Riveras’ vocal chords is permanent,”  The doctor said. 

 

Héctor felt Ernesto look at him. He gently reached up and touched his throat. His voice… His ability to sing was gone. 

 

In the corner of his eye, he saw Ernesto fall back in his chair. He couldn’t look at his friend. Ernesto’s dream… Their dream lay smoking at their feet. It was too difficult.

 

“Permanently?” Héctor asked, cringing now at the creak in his once smooth voice.

 

“Permanently,” The doctor confirmed. He then tilted his head, before adding, “Unless there was a way we could douse you in white blood cells, but even then… that many white blood cells would kill you.”

 

The finality of that word felt like a death knell. His voice… His ability to play guitar, to perform,  gone. He would never be able to sing with Coco again. Or use his voice to make his wife smile. He would never be able to be able to pick up a guitar and play with Ernesto. 

 

He would have no way of providing for Imelda, for their child. They were going to be destitute. Imelda’s family was right, she could have chosen anyone better than a poor musico, and now she was shackled with a poor cripple, with no money and a hungry child. How was he going to face her again? 

 

His only comfort was that, hopefully, as he could no longer perform, he could in fact go home.

 

“This does mean I can go home?” Héctor asked unable to hide the tired hope in his voice.

 

“ _ ¿Que?  _ Of course, in fact that is what I would advise. Although we do need to keep you here an extra week to monitor your condition of course,” The doctor said.

 

Héctor could barely contain his excitement, “¡ _ Sí! ¡Por supuesto!” _

 

“ _ Uno momento, por favor,”  _ Ernesto said holding a hand up. He looked at the doctor as he asked, “Surely, in his condition, it would be unwise to let Héctor travel across the country on his own? I mean, one false move, and…”

 

“An excellent point! I was hoping I could release him into your care? You could take him back to Santa Cecilia,” The doctor said.

 

“Uh…  _ Sí!”  _ Ernesto said, nodding his head. 

 

“Now one more thing. Señor Rivera, Señor de la Cruz can either of you think of any reason why someone would want to poison either of you?” The Doctor asked. 

 

“No, Señor,”  Héctor said shaking his head. He glanced at Ernesto who staring at the wall. He seemed deep in thought.

 

“No one either of you know who would have a motive to kill Señor Rivera? Murder is often done by someone close to the victim.”

 

Ernesto looked up at the doctor in shock.

 

_ “Señor!  _ You’re surely not blaming me! I am affronted that you even think that I would even consider that,” Ernesto said. He pointed at Héctor, “That man’s like my _ hermano _ ! We’ve been friends since he was four.”

 

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to implicate you Señor de la Cruz, but is there anyone else…?” 

 

After a moment, Ernesto glanced at Héctor and suggested, “Possibly the fans?” 

 

Héctor rolled his eyes, “Yes, because a teenage girl obsessed with my eyelashes can be a psychopath?”

 

“Didn’t she follow you across state lines?” Ernesto asked.

 

“She was eighteen?! And honestly, she was very sweet. Don’t you think teenage girls should be allowed to be happy after recent years?” Héctor huffed, before sputtering into a bloody cough.

 

“... _ I  _ thought she was creepy.”

Héctor recovered enough to rasp back, “Yes, well you think Pepita is creepy.”

 

“I swear it wants to kill me,” Ernesto muttered. “Do cats count?” 

 

“No,” The doctor sighed unimpressed. “Were there any other fans?”

 

“There was that one woman who swore up and down she was having your baby,” Héctor said. He didn’t really believe the woman was a violent murderess, he just wanted to get back at Ernesto for taking a jab at one of his fans.

 

Ernesto’s eyes widened in excitement, “Yes! She was also creepy!”

 

Héctor put his head in his hands. Evidently, Ernesto had no idea how crazy he sounded.

 

Ernesto continued, “Also there was a fan who stole Hector’s songbook one night for a in Leon. We only know that it was a fan because the book was handed over to the reception the next day.”

 

Héctor recalled that incident. It had been weird since nothing else had been taken. He had checked the room, while Ernesto had gone back to the venue… and got sidetracked. 

 

“Well it is safe to say that the first two incidents simply were just excited fans, however there certainly may be something there with regards to the third incident. I will notify the  _ policía  _ as soon as possible,” The doctor said.

 

“Surely they wouldn’t want to interview us themselves?” Ernesto asked.

 

“No, at the moment they’re stretched too thin  trying to regain the peace in the city at the moment,”  The doctor said. 

 

Héctor’s organs decided at that moment to hack up a lung, and he ended up coughing until he felt dizzy.

 

Ernesto glanced at Héctor sympathetically, and asked, “So what other symptoms is Héctor likely to experience?”

 

As the doctor began to list of other difficulties brought about by an expired liver, Héctor found himself zoning out. He was tired already, and the emotional shock had yet to settle. 

 

He found himself curling up into the… his wheelchair. He heard the doctor say something about how it was advised he should stay in it for a while, while his muscles recovered. Then afterwards he should consult someone.

 

Héctor felt very small, and exposed in the room. He felt like a specimen rather than a man in that moment, and listening to the other two talk about him like he wasn’t there didn’t help his mood.  However, what did he really have left to contribute? He wasn’t a medico… and Ernesto… he had destroyed his friend’s plans. He was going to be saddled with him now, instead of a capable singing partner. 

 

He couldn’t believe he had been poisoned. Who would want to poison him? Why was it him? Had his poisoning been an accident? Was it a sad trick of fate?He had nothing. What had he done to deserve this? His poor liver had paid the price for this crime, breaking down due to the onslaught of some mystery poison like paper in the rain. 

 

He just wanted to go home. Even then, he wouldn’t be strong enough to hold his love, or his angel? 

 

Héctor gripped the arm of the chair feeling a new boiling sensation rise up him. He would never be able to sing with Coco again. Or play guitar, while Imelda danced. Or perform with his best friend?

 

What monster had destroyed his life? 

 

\---

 

A few days later, Héctor and Ernesto were sitting together in the men’s courtyard in the middle of the hospital. It truly was a beautiful place hidden in the terrifying nightmare of sickness and death that was  _ Hospital de Jesús Nasareno _ . The large stone fountains made the courtyards seem rather decadent, and drowned out the screams groans and whimpers of the sick.  It smelled of flowers here, not vomit and death. It was eerily peaceful. It reminded them that hospitals weren’t only just for dying in. 

 

Héctor liked the courtyard, the peach walls made it always feel like dusk, which put him at ease. And while the courtyard wasn’t always sunny, the pale natural light was always a lot more preferable that the harsh fake light of the hospital. Also the green foliage around him was a lot more homely than the rows and rows of beds inside. He even found comfort in the face on the old church tower. It seemed to be watching him protectively. 

 

Ernesto liked the area less, but it was one of the few places they could talk in private, and Héctor felt healthier there. 

 

At that moment, they were sitting at a table together. Héctor was dictating to Ernesto a letter to Imelda and Coco. It was difficult for several reasons. 

 

They had to explain the situation to Imelda in a way that wouldn’t upset Coco. Héctor was also irritated with Ernesto for failing to tell his wife he was in hospital for a week and a half. So Héctor already had to stop himself from snapping at the other man. Also Ernesto was losing patience with Héctor repeatedly rephasing him. All to say, things were going quite badly.

 

“Remind me why we can’t simply say: I was poisoned, but don’t worry, I am alive?” Ernesto asked after an hour of writing.

 

Héctor pinched his temple, before he  glared at him, “You work that one out idiot.”

 

“ _ Aye, si! Dios mio!  _ The horror that will occur! She’ll learn about anyway in a decade… You’re too sensitive.  You write this fucking letter then if you’re so amazing,” Ernesto said shoving paper towards. 

 

Héctor winced, “You know I can’t.” 

 

“Well either practice, or cut out this flowery stuff,”  Ernesto huffed, snatching the paper back.

 

“It’s the flowery stuff that brings in the crowd,”  Héctor snapped He winced again, and looked at the paper, “Used to bring in the crowd.”

 

“That is… true,” Ernesto said thoughtfully.

 

“I mean I would definitely have written this letter myself, had someone not said and I quote ‘Héctor you’re handwriting looks worse than Coco’s right now,’” Héctor grumbled. “I mean real nice coming from my best friend after a week of throwing up my-”

 

“I got it!” Ernesto said suddenly staring at Héctor. 

 

“Huh?”

 

“You’re right! That’s exactly what brings  in the crowd! Your way with imagery and the way that you relate with others is what brings in the crowd. You’re songs bring in the crowds Héctor!”

 

“I am surprised you are now only just realising this,”  Héctor said flatly. 

 

“No… What I am trying to say is that’s how you bring in the crowds Héctor!” Ernesto said in the same way a man who had suddenly realised the location of buried treasure would. 

 

“No… that’s both of us-”

 

“No, it’s your songs. Sure, both of us can-  could play them. Anyone could, however, it is your songs that people love.”

 

“We are not having this debate again, Ernesto. I can’t perform anymore,” Hector sighed.

 

“No! No! What I am trying to say is… I can still perform, and you can write music. You tell me what to write, and then I’ll write it down. You then have a job, and… and you can do it from Santa Cecilia. You can do it from anywhere. Think of it as making up for being unable to actually play or perform. You don’t need to throw away your skills. I can be your voice, if you give me the words. I will split the royalties between us. I mean we do it already to a degree anyway.”

 

Héctor sat there in stunned silence. 

 

The idea of Ernesto performing his songs… made him uncomfortable. Not all of his songs were for public consumption, or were actually meant for someone. The idea of Ernesto performing them without understanding the heart.  However hadn’t that always been they’re arrangement? Héctor wrote the songs, he had taught them to Ernesto, Ernesto simply performed. Even before Héctor had written the songs. What really changed aside from their duo became a solo act? It could work. He could write and still enjoy the music that sometimes seemed to live in his bones. 

 

At the same time, he hadn’t written anything worth the price of admission since he had last seen Imelda and Coco six months ago.

 

“So what do you say, Héctor?” Ernesto grinned. 

 

“I mean I would like to, but I’m still sick,” Héctor said. “I want to go home to my family. Maybe when I am there I can think about it.”

 

“But you’re so good? Like what was it…? The song from last month?  _ Aves Bailando a Través del Sol?” _

 

_ “¿Pájaros Bailando al Sol?” _

 

“I know that you didn’t like it, but it was good. Also think of it like this: it’s a way you can come home and provide for your wife and Coco? You really think Imelda’s shoe business is going to become famous? Pfft. No, you can come in with your real money. You can show her you are still a man, and have the kahunas to provide for her and be the man in your family.”

 

“I- I it may take me awhile, I really don’t feel well enough-”

 

“Héctor, I am going to be very honest with you now,” Ernesto said, putting his hands on the table. “You’re never going to feel ‘well’ ever again. So you need to stop being a big baby about it. Instead see it as an opportunity.”

 

_ “¿...Que?”  _

 

“All artists secretly want to be suffering artist. But you! You have a talent! And you really are suffering! What artist can say they ingested poison, and live with the consequences?!”

 

“You make it sound like I had a choice-”

 

“You, my friend, can turn your suffering into music. Real music. Stuff everyone will empathise with. You could control a whole nation with your words, like Madero. They will be making movies of you! You could write for movies! The world is your oyster, Héctor what do you say?” 

 

“I… I could do that. Yes, plus I am sure Imelda would happy with a little more money around the house. Coco does need a new dress, apparently.  _ Sí _ fine, I’ll do it!” 

 

Ernesto grito’d. Another patron in the courtyard glared at him, but the musician barely noticed. 

 

“But! Not until I get home!” Héctor declared.

 

“About that? Do you mind if we do a little detour on route?” Ernesto said, emphasising how small with his fingers.

 

Hector stared at him dumbfounded for a moment , before glaring, “You want to continue the tour!”

 

“Sí, but only for a little!”

 

“I can’t believe you! I was dying last week!” Héctor all but shouted, which caused him to splutter into a bloody cough. 

 

“Hey! Hey! Hear me out!” Ernesto said with his hands raised in surrender.

 

When Héctor stopped coughing, he continued to glare at Ernesto.

 

“Also don’t shout Héctor. It causes a scene and stresses out your voice, and I am worried about you,” Ernesto chastised. He then cleared his throat, “Anyway, look at it like this: We’d need to go through Toluca, Morelia, Zamora and Guadalajara anyway. Why not go through, perform a few shows… You return with money for you and Imelda.  That way you can show her you are still a hardworking man and don’t come home empty handed.”

 

“I’m sick, Ernesto,” Héctor said. “I don’t think she’d care.”

 

“...Unless you don’t think you’re capable? I mean you were poisoned,  so I am sure she’s understand being. It just must be very tiring for her… to be married to a musico who has been away for months, and has come back a cripple. Even with her shoes, Imelda’s money has been running thin. When we left hadn’t her brothers been thinking of moving in with her.”

 

“I’m sure she can make the money stretch,” Héctor said, unsure now. 

 

“Not with these medical bills you will bring back with you. Who do you think is going to pay for your medicine, Héctor? Just one of you. Also Coco is a growing girl, soon she’ll be bigger and need new clothes and more food.”

 

“I am sure-”

 

“You’re not scared are you?.”

 

“Of What?”

 

“That you have nothing left to contribute,” Ernesto leaned in close.

 

“ _ ¿Que? _ No! I-” Hector said.

 

“Ok, then why do you want to give up writing? Both Imelda and I can dictate what you’re saying just fine. And when we’re busy, Coco can take over later on. And why Do you want to give up touring? It brings home more money for Imelda and Coco. Do you really think I, after seventeen years, will suddenly stop protecting you?”

 

“No, Of course not.”

 

“See, then why are you holding yourself back? Just a few more stops, and you can go home a rich man to your beautiful wife, and pretty girl,” Ernesto smiled.

 

“I - I will think about it,” Héctor said. 

 

\---

A few days later, Héctor had been discharged from the hospital into Ernesto’s care. Héctor was still finding walking unaided very tiring, so he was currently stuck in a wheelchair. 

 

Immediately, Ernesto hated the evil contraption, because usually he had to help guide and push Héctor everywhere. Meanwhile the gordito got to be pushed  around like he was the prince of India. 

 

Now, however, they were in a train from Mexico City, in a private carriage. Ernesto guessed there were some upsides to the wheelchair, even if it hurt his arms. 

 

On the plus side, it meant that Héctor couldn't really travel anywhere alone. At least, he couldn't until he either was able to walk unaided, or he got used to the chair, and could push himself in it. Héctor had already recovered some strength in his arms. However, he was still recovering from the poisoning itself, and would get tired. 

 

The man was also on more medication than either of them could keep track of. So far they had made a list of the medicines and when he was meant to take them all. Ernesto was convinced that this much medication wasn't safe, and couldn't be helpful to Héctor's health. It did however give him some ideas should the other man start being a nuisance again. 

 

Meanwhile, Hector was a bit more subdued than normal. Ernesto guessed that he was still getting over the shock of being unable to perform again. In an attempt to make his friend cheer up, Ernesto was excitedly regaling Héctor with set list ideas, now that it was a solo performance. However, this seemed to make his friend more quiet. 

  
  


Ernesto was still upset that his plan hadn’t worked outright. However, the outcome, while requiring some serious replanning was arguably more beneficial. Héctor was stuck with him now, and writing more music. Héctor had also conceded to a few more shows on the road again. 

 

After receiving the letter,  Imelda had immediately wanted to come and see her husband, but it was Héctor, surprisingly, who had discouraged her. He had explained to her that the expenses were too much, and that he would be home soon. Coco had sent him a rather cute card of her and Héctor, while Héctor had been playing guitar in his chair. 

 

Héctor had cooed over the card for hours. Ernesto had almost wanted to wretch himself afterwards. Somehow Imelda’s letter had been like salt in the wound. 

 

Not long after getting on the train, Héctor  was upset again. He was throwing a tantrum because Ernesto had added a few more spots to their list.

 

“Ernesto, I can barely walk! I can’t go travelling around Mexico with you!Why don’t you just take me home?” Héctor begged

 

“I would, but if I cancel anymore shows, we’re going to start to make people very, very angry.  Or I will lose my credibility as a singer, and you don’t want that do you, Héctor?” Ernesto argued, remaining calm. “Since I am singing your songs.”

 

Héctor, immediately, looked guilty, “Of course not, but-“

 

“After everything I have done for you! And this is how you repay me? You are so ungrateful!” Ernesto said, sniffing, looking hurt.

 

Héctor stumbled across his words, “No Ernesto, I didn’t mean to-“

 

“I stuck by your side, when you needed me, but the moment I need you, you run away!” 

 

“I am so-“

 

“I’ll tell you what: when we arrive in Tampico, and you can go home, but I am not! I am not letting people down, just because I want to go home too.”

 

“You know I can’t-“

 

“You always abandon me, whenever I need you. Would you do this to Imelda, or Coco? You would be-“

 

“Ernesto! You know I can’t leave!” 

 

“You obviously want to.”

 

“But I can’t,” Héctor sobbed. “I’ll stay, until the end of tour. Just stop adding stops. It isn’t helping.”

 

Héctor immediately began to cough painfully into a handkerchief. 

 

Ernesto lay a hand on his shoulder, “Hermano, I know it’s hard. But you’ll be ok. We’ll be home soon.”

 

“How soon is soon?” Hécotr asked quietly.

 

“Once I have made back the money we lost and made it up to the stops on the original tour, hmm?”

 

“Yeah, sure,” Héctor said quietly, looking out the window.

 

After a pause, Ernesto sighed, “Aye, don’t be mad at me. I just don’t want you to get hurt travelling by yourself. Besides you’re not completely useless, you could write songs?”

 

“Yeah, but I am not in the mood to listen to to you butcher them at the moment,” Héctor said, a hint of humour in his voice

 

Ernesto scowled, before relaxing, “You could see it as a challenge, to write something even I couldn’t butcher!”

 

Héctor smiled this time, and said, “Aye, when pigs fly.”

 

“¡Oí!” Ernesto said, slapping his friends knee.

 

Héctor shrugged, “I guess you’re not completely tone death.”

 

Ernesto smiled, adding “No, that would be Imelda’s Tía Margarita.”

 

“You’re not wrong. That woman could write for years, but singing... her cat was better,” Héctor said, he looked out the window of the train tapping a tune out on the glass. He then indicated with his head at Ernesto, “Hey Neto, grab a pen?”

 

While Ernesto fished out a pen from his bag, Héctor pulled out his red song book from his bag, handing it to him. 

 

Ernesto smiled to himself. He couldn’t believe Hector had fallen for this. The songwriter was blissfully unaware that it was all Ernesto’s fault why he was in chair, and couldn’t sing or play guitar. Anyway, Ernesto was glad, this plan would be much more beneficial. Alive, Héctor could write new songs for him, and Ernesto could ‘borrow’ some of the others. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I may have made the plot a little different? Slightly more grim than Mickey’s version.
> 
> Both the grim content of this chapter and it’s length (believe it or not bits of this chapter have been ready for six months) contributed to the delay too. Literally everything was working against me this chapter. I’m sorry.
> 
> This chapter featured two cameos:  
> Jazmin Veracruz is referenced as the fan obsessed with Héctor’s eyelashes who followed him across stateline. She belongs to death_frisbee and im_faily_witty, and is a character in their teacher AU which you can read [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/943080). She is obsessed with his eyelashes, as a reference to her tumblr handle [@hectorriveraseyelashes](https://hectorriveraseyelashes.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. Seriously it’s a really good fic, and while she is mostly a background character, I love Jazmin.  
> Señor Sendoa is a real person called Dr. Hugh Griffiths. If anyone remembers a few months back I wrote a headcannon regarding ricin being the poison that killed Héctor, that was actually my friend Hugh’s suggestion. He has a PhD in microbiology. Sadly for my headcannon someone debunked it, however that made it a prime candidate for Ernesto’s failed poison attempt. However, as a thanks to Hugh I decided that it would only be fitting that he is the man who taught Ernesto how to prepare Ricin.
> 
> We’re going to check back in on Ernesto and Héctor in chapter 6.
> 
> As I said above I love the support this fic gets, and I love chatting with you guys in the comments.
> 
> Next week, We’re going Back to the Future, where people communicate! (And yes, it will be next week.)


	5. Chapter 4: You don’t see the trouble if you are mistaking the forest for the trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel and his friends do some research.
> 
> Also I am back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Back!!!!!!
> 
> After nine months, I am sorry. Real life came and bit me in the ass. There will be a tumblr post explaining as much as I am happy to going up soon. 
> 
> Also please check my tumblr for posters done by Elletoria. They're great, one of the photos is my mobile phone background. 
> 
> "8-5-25 13-3-22-19-9? 25-15-21 20-18-1-9-12-5-4 15-6-6 6-15-18 1 13-15-13-5-14-20.."
> 
> "Bhdk.. Vl L mxvw grq'w olnh wdonlqj derxw lw."
> 
> "19-8-1-12-12 23-5 7-15 2-1-3-11 20-15 25-15-21 1-14-4 19-3-15-14-5-3?"
> 
> "Vxuh, ohw ph whoo brx derxw krz L uhdoob ehfdph sduw ri wklv vwrub…”

####  **Chapter 4: You don’t see the trouble if you are mistaking the forest for the trees**

(For Dara for being an amazing artist. For Kel for being the best proofreader ever -also for letting me borrow Noelia and Ana. I promise you will see Ana’s wife soon.)

 

“So what do you think?” Miguel said as he finished explaining that week’s events.

 

Mateo nibbled the side of his finger. He had been quiet while Miguel had spoke. He was looking at the notes he had made of what Miguel had told him.

 

While Miguel was desperate to know what his friend thought of these… mysteries, he also knew it was a lot to comprehend. 

 

Miguel had attempted to summarise all the events and discoveries of that week into texts that morning before school. However, thanks to his and Rosa’s late night (early morning?) chat, he hadn’t been very coherent. It also didn’t help that his phone’s camera was broken from the incident six months ago with Abel and the shoe grinder. So Mateo had told him to meet him at lunch. 

 

Miguel looked down, and picked at the packet of cookies Mateo had brought with him. To stop himself from talking, Miguel shoved cookies into his mouth, while Mateo organised his thoughts. 

 

Mateo took his hand away from his mouth, and picked up the nearest _foto_ , the 1995 one, “So… you found these _fotos…_ and they’re all the same man…?”

 

Miguel finished the cookie, before starting to say, “Well, I think they are.”

 

“Miguel... you- you’re not crazy. These _fotos_ they’re of the same man,” Mateo said, looked up at him. “A very distinctive man actually.”

 

“But, how do you explain the dates?” Miguel asked, feeling a little bit scared.

 

“Um… Maybe they’re staged? I mean the ‘95 and ‘63 ones could easily be, but.. Not the 1926 one. However… maybe there is a way to date them using science,” Mateo pulled his phone out, and started to google how to date photographs. “However, the colouring, and difference in aperture does seem to imply they were taken at different stages of camera development…”

 

“I was actually thinking of asking the seller I bought them from where he got them.”

 

Mateo nodded at him. “ _Sí_ , that’s actually a good idea.”

 

“And what about _Mamá_ Coco’s story?” Miguel asked, feeling sheepish. It was the part of his discoveries that made the least sense.

 

“Well... people with dementia do get confused about things, lie to people say things happen that didn’t...  but that’s more present or the recent past, not the distant past like that. They tend to be more concise on older events..” Mateo trailed off, and looked up at Miguel again. “Miguel, if these fotos are really from when they say they are, then it appears we have an immortal man? Then while still outlandish, a vampire is still actually a credible theory.”

 

“So…?”

 

“So…” Mateo paused his search, and looked at Miguel contemplatively. For a moment, he was quiet, and rubbed his finger against his thumb. When he spoke it was very carefully, “Miguel, I… Vampires go against every scientific possibility there can be. So it’s your _Mamá’s_ word against a lot of science.”

 

Miguel felt a swell of fury at the idea that Mateo would even imply his _Mamá_ Coco was a liar. Then he remembered how _Mamá_ Coco had tried to convince _Tío_ Berto that _Abuelita_ had tried to give her ‘the wrong medicine’ last month. He sighed in frustration. 

 

“But I don’t think she is a liar. Sadly, many years have passed since she last saw her _Papá…_ or who she thought was her _Papá_ , that said, along with these photos of this man… Vampires are an explanation. I- I don’t know what to think Miguel.”

 

“Thanks,” Miguel smiled gently. “I don’t know what I have found…and I need you more than ever. Outside my family you are my best friend. I can’t do this on my own.”

 

“Hey, I trust you. At least… I trust that you are not a liar… not to me,” Mateo smiled. “You’re not alone. I am going to help you. I promise, whatever happens to you, you won’t be on you own. I’ll be there too.” 

 

“ _Gracias_ Mateo!” Miguel said quietly, smiling. 

 

“No problem, what are friends for if not solving weird mysteries? Hmmm… We need more evidence.”

 

“ _Sí_ , we need to know when these _fotos_ were taken.”

 

“And where. The ‘63 one looks like it might be at a party?”

 

“There has to be a record!”

 

“ _Sí._ Also, we need to talk to your _Mamá_ Coco.”

 

Mateo opened his mouth to say something, when there was a bang from the door the other end of the corridor to the music room door. Light, but firm footfalls could be heard coming down the corridor.  The two boys looked at each other in panic. 

 

Miguel grabbed his school bag. With a push from Mateo, he jumped behind the piano. Miguel saw in the corner of his eye Mateo grab a guitar from the rack. He winced. Mateo started to strum a few untuned chords. He was holding it the wrong way. 

 

A few milliseconds later the music room door opened. 

 

“Hey! I was just practicing for my- Ok, what?” Mateo said, immediately stopping his charade to stare at the person at the door in confusion. Miguel wanted to peak around the side of the piano, but stopped himself. 

 

By the look on Mateo’s face it was none of the usual people who walked into the music room. Miguel held his breath, forcing himself to sit still. 

 

“Hi Mateo,” a very familiar voice said, causing Miguel to lurch involuntarily forward. “I would ask if Miguel’s here but I know he is. You know we’re are so grounded if _Abuelita_ finds out we’re here.”

 

A bag clattered onto the piano seat. 

 

“Rosa, why would you think your _primo_ is here? I barely-” Mateo started.

 

“Listen. I’ve known for years this is where he sneaks off to. Like I have known for years that he and you are super super close. Which is really… good... Great for him… I’m glad he has friends. However, here’s the thing: I don’t care about getting him into trouble. It’s the least of my concerns right now. I need to talk to him,” Rosa said. 

 

 _Rosa had known… for years? Then why…?_ Confusion whirled around Miguel’s head. 

 

“What are your concerns then?” Mateo asked, glancing at Miguel with confusion, then back at where Rosa was standing. 

 

Miguel stood up.

 

Mateo scowled disapprovingly at him, however, Miguel didn’t care. He was too annoyed and upset. Rosa had known for years that he had liked music, and had said nothing.  She had done nothing. Now, suddenly when it suited her, he was supposed to accept that?

 

He ground his teeth, before asking, “Years! Why did you never-”

 

“Tell _Abuelita_ ? Do anything? What could I do Miguel?! You know they listen to me as much as they listen to you? It’s not going to take one person to change _Abuelita’s_ mind except her or maybe _Mamá_ Coco, which… she won’t,” Rosa sighed, then shrugged. “Anyway, you were always happier after spending time here. You look miserable at home. I am not cruel, it doesn’t take a genius to work out you would be in a lot of trouble if I told her.” 

 

“-Tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?” Miguel finished. His annoyance was still prickling under his skin. Just because his cousin was right didn’t calm down his mood.

 

Rosa looked at him in surprise. She grabbed her wrist, and looked at the door, “Oh, I… I  know that people have their secrets. I didn’t think you’d like the fact I knew. I was scared that if I told you, you would hide yourself even more. Shut us… your family, your parents, your _primos_ ...out even more. I was frightened you would be weird with me, and… you were the only person who talked to me at school....”

 

“Oh,” Miguel swallowed. His temper had calmed a little, “You were lonely.”

 

“Something like that,” Rosa said, here eyes watering

 

“Should I leave?” Mateo said suddenly. 

 

The two _primos_ turned to look at Mateo.

 

Mateo looked frightened. His eyes wide like a deer stuck in headlights, unable to move. Mateo was looking from one _primo_ to the other.  He was nervously chewing his chewing his lip.

 

“I need to talk to Miguel about something, so if you don’t mind-” Rosa started to say.

 

“No… Mateo can stay…” Miguel said. Just because he was no longer mad at Rosa didn’t mean she could boss Mateo around.

 

“I **really** need to talk to you Miguel,” Rosa said.

 

“Well, Mateo was here first, and besides if it is about the Coco thing I told him already,” Miguel said. “So he stays if he wants.”

 

The two _primos_ looked at Mateo. The older teen’s eyes widened a little and he shrugged. 

 

Miguel sighed, “He stays.”

 

He looked at the ground briefly, before looking at the _fotos._

 

Currently, they were mysteries to him. They didn’t make sense, and even if they were real, there was no proof they had anything to do with vampires. Which led Miguel to his next issue, which were vampires: real or not real? 

 

Miguel looked at Mateo, who was looking at him, teeth gritted in panic. 

 

Mateo had suggested research apertures and _foto_ things. Research was easier to do if there were more eyes. His friend maybe a scaredy cat, but he was also much smarter about such things than he was. Miguel wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t as book smart as Mateo. Honestly, he had no idea what the word aperture meant. 

 

Miguel looked at Rosa, who was still looking at him nervously, but with a hardness in her eyes that meant she wasn’t going to back down.

 

Rosa knew how to research. She was incredibly smart, and would probably know what aperture meant. Also she had heard some of Coco’s story, and therefore may remember more. She also, unlike Mateo, didn’t get scared as easily. Anyway she had now seen Mateo and him in the music room, and therefore could easily get him in trouble, even if she didn’t want to right now. So he couldn’t tell her to leave at this point.

 

“Rosa, I need to show you something,” Miguel said, and he walked over to the table. Rosa followed behind him.

 

He pushed the _fotos_ over to Rosa, who pulled them closer. She pressed her glasses up her nose and turned them over to look at the date on each.

 

Miguel then noticed Mateo was watching her look at the pictures an unreadable expression on his face. He had seemingly forgotten about the guitar. Miguel quickly rescued it from his friend and put it back in it’s cradle.

 

“They’re the same man,” Rosa said after a few moments. 

 

 _“Sí_ ,” Miguel said.

 

“In 1995, 1926 and 1963. The same man, looking the same age, across nearly seventy years,” Rosa said.

 

 _“Sí._ ” 

 

“Miguel, this is what you were talking about last night, wasn’t it?” Rosa asked, looking at him.

 

 _“Sí_.”

 

“Where did you get these?” Rosa asked.

 

“At the market. There was a vendor, selling _fotos_. I saw these, and bought them,” Miguel said. Rosa may now know most of his secrets, but there was no need to tell her about Dante. 

 

“Hmm… This is why you were thinking about _Mamá_ Coco’s story, _Sí?_ ” 

 

“ _Sí_.” 

 

“I suggested we look into the validity and age of the _fotos_ ?” Mateo said. Both _primos_ looked at him. He then showed his phone to the _primos_ , “Science doesn't really help, unless you want to spend a lot more money than what both our families have combined, but there are other ways to prove their accuracy. Namely, by looking through other old _fotos,_ or family records or records.”

 

“But… these _fotos_ were being sold? How will we know who this guy is?” Miguel asked. “Who would we even ask? If his _fotos_ being sold, I bet his family has even forgotten him.”

 

“How would you even bring this up? ‘Hello! We’re looking for relatives of an immortal man? Yeah, He is in his early twenties.. Know anyone who fits that description? Oh, your _Tatarabuelo_ , you say?’ We would look _completely_ sane,” Mateo pointed out. He then noticed both _primos_ had whinced at his choice of relative. He looked uncomfortable and mumbled, “Sorry.”

 

There was silence for a moment, which Miguel broke by telling Rosa, “We also thought we could look up the party somewhere?”

 

“There are old _fotos_ in the archives, and probably records of town events too,” Rosa said excitedly. “Maybe we will see goldie here in another old _foto_.” 

 

“Nice!” Mateo grinned at her.

 

“We can look tomorrow!” Rosa said.

 

“I need to set up with _Abuelita_ tomorrow,” Mateo said, looking downcast. 

 

“I have to shine shoes, this Saturday is my Saturday to work,” Miguel sighed. He then perked up, “But I can ask that salesman where he got the _fotos?”_

 

“Oh, yes, that’s an idea,” Mateo nodded

 

“Ok… Well I’ll go to the archives then,” Rosa said. “Then we can all meet up at Mateo’s tomorrow night under the guise of a school project or something?” 

 

“That… might work. We share some classes,” Mateo said.

 

“I don’t,” Miguel said, he tilted his head, “But I was going to go there anyway under the guise of doing science work.”

 

“Oh there’ll be time for both science, and mysteries untold,” Mateo said grinning excitedly.

 

Miguel rolled his eyes. Sometimes Mateo’s love for science was a little unnerving… It was a small comfort that he at least he stayed away from the explosive side of chemistry. Miguel feared the day he ever found someone more obsessed with science than Mateo. Actually, he would probably lock them in a room with Mateo and see what happened.  

 

“That’s fine, Miguel sucks at science anyway, so there is at least truth there,” Rosa said.

 

Miguel glared at her. It didn’t matter how true the statement was it still hurt. Besides, the upside of being friends with Mateo was that he did enjoy science because it was Mateo’s enthusiasm. 

 

Mateo concluded, “In that case, Miguel and I will search the internet tonight for any information about vampires in or around Santa Cecilia.”

 

“Then we’re all in agreement then?” Rosa asked.

 

 _“Sí,”_ the boys chorused. 

 

Rosa then pulled out her phone and took photos of the fotos and Mateo's notes. She then sent them to Miguel, before asking Mateo for his telephone number to send them to him.

 

While she added his number to her phone, Miguel and Mateo discussed the type of things they'd need to look for. While they were talking Mateo found an article on Wikipedia regarding traits found with fictional vampires that was incredibly comprehensive, which he shared with the other two. While it was specifically fictional vampires, it still helped. 

 

As soon as they had decided on that the topics to research, the bell rang. 

 

Miguel dashed off to _educación física_ , while Mateo and Rosa walked off towards _literatura_. 

 

\---

 

Despite the boiling sun outside it was surprisingly cold in the archives beneath the library. Rosa had at first been able to ignore the cold in her excitement upon seeing the microfiche reader, but even the immense fun of playing with old reels wore off quickly. She wished that these old documents could survive in warmer climates. It also seemed the longer she was there, the colder she became. 

 

However despite the chilly surroundings, the room was a treasure trove of discoveries. When she had first come down here, she had felt shocked and daunted by the vast number of records available to her. Luckily for her, _Señora_ Cortez’s deputy: _Señorita_ Ortiz was incredibly helpful, and soon pointed her to the correct areas she needed to research.

 

Finding the three boxes of town records from 1963 had not been difficult. In there she had found several potential events at which the _foto_ could have been taken at. She had copied down the details carefully, and even photocopied a leaflet for a New Years Eve party in _El Barrio Viejo_ which had promised live performers, although it specified none of the performers names at all. 

 

However, that had been several hours ago, and since then Rosa had been pouring over photographs of the town which had been taken through the years. To her absolute frustration, the man with the golden tooth was not in a single image. It was as though he existed only inside Miguel’s three _fotos_.

 

She had even considered looking back through the town’s dental records just to see if there was a record of the man getting the golden tooth. However, she wasn’t sure where to start, so that may be a research trip for another day.

 

As she flicked through the latest box (labelled 1946) of _fotos_ she had put down on the table, Rosa was giving serious thoughts to giving up. She rubbed her eyes, and pulled the 1963 _foto_ backup on her phone, and quickly sifted through the stack.

 

She almost missed it. 

 

As she stopped rubbing her eyes, Rosa flicked past a single image of a female soldier holding a gun. She paused and went back. The woman with black chin length hair and a calculating look. She swore that the woman looked familiar, and glanced at the photo on her phone, and did a double take. The woman with curly hair, and the woman with the short hair were the same person. They had the same measured eyes. The same sharp features. They looked the same age.The _fotos_ were taken twenty years apart, and she looked the same age.

 

Rosa leaned back in her chair for a moment, reeling from her discovery. The man with the gold tooth it seemed wasn’t the only man who seemed to have an unusually long life span.

 

Rosa gently turned the photo over. There was a name, and something else written in the corner of the picture. A flare of excitement in her stomach.

 

The note read: 1946. _Capitana_ Noelia Flores of escuadrón 201 _Las Águilas Aztecas_ returning from war. 

 

Rosa grinned. There was another person who looked the exact same in two separate time periods. What’s more, she now had a name. _Capitana Noelia Flores._

 

She pulled out her phone, and quickly googled the army issue number next to _Capitana_ Flores’ name. A page from the government WW2 army veterans page quickly confirmed the validity of _Capitana_ Flores’ rank, and her bravery.

 

Rosa suddenly had an idea. If two people were recurring figures in the town photographs there had to be more people. Rosa went pulled back the furthest box from her, and pulled them out again. 

 

This time she went through the images with renewed vigour, no longer just looking for the man with the gold tooth. 

 

She didn’t immediately find anymore of _Capitana_ Flores, but every decade (later 15 years) the same man would appear in police squadron _fotos_ . Rosa was almost shaking with excitement, when she realised in every single _foto_ the man never appeared to age. He looked in his late 50s to early 60s, and had the same authoritative expression, with gentle eyes that reminded her of _Abuelito_ . The latest _foto_ had been taken in 2008. According to the _fotos_ his name was Chief Officer Jonatan Pinos -although it never said what he was the Chief Officer of.. From there Rosa decided to head back, and look for the man in later _fotos_. 

 

At first, she was confused, as the man did show up occasionally in other fotos, but he seemed  slightly different. His face and body seemed softer, and there was a beauty mark on his forehead which didn’t seem to be in the official _fotos_. Rosa was worried she had been mistaken, and maybe the one man was the other’s son. 

 

However, then she found a _foto_ as far back as 1903. It was an image of two almost identical men in incredibly formal attire. They had their arms slung over each other’s shoulders. Both were the same age- late 50s-early 60. Both men had gentle _abuelo_ -like eyes. One still had an air of authority, but was laughing at the camera. He also had a more square jaw than the other, whose face was round, with a single lone beauty mark on his forehead. He also lacked the air of authority, and gave off more of an _abuelo_ vibe.

 

 _Twins… Twin immortal men._ Rosa wondered how had nobody had uncovered this. 

 

Rosa flipped the _foto_ and found an inscription: Alejo and Jonatan Pinos. She took a photo, and added the names to her list. As she wrote, Rosa had the strange feeling that she had seen the Chief or his brother once or twice when there had been a police issue in Santa Cecilia. She quickly googled the men, but found nothing of use.

 

While looking for more _fotos,_ Rosa found three more of the army woman -Capt. Noelia Flores.  One was at a New Year’s Eve posey dance 1 , where Noelia was cheering at the married couple dancing at the centre of the circle, dated the 2001. The third Capt. Noelia was smiling at the camera leaning against a truly old fashioned computer with tape, dated 1966. She looked like she had barely aged a day in a single image. Then there was another of her with the woman she had been dancing with in the party _foto_ \- they appeared to be attempting to shoot crockery in a field… it was dated 1989.

 

Other faces appeared and vanished, then reappeared, however while there was enough to point out for Rosa to tell that people who didn’t age after 50 years was a problem, they were more random background characters rather than taking centre stage, and thus were often not in focus, and therefore she wasn’t completely sure.

 

The only other person of note Rosa found _fotos_ of was was the woman who had danced with Noelia. Rosa quickly discovered, due to multiple dancing show posters, that her name was Ana Nieves. Her image appeared a lot more frequently than most, but not as regularly as Jonatan Pinos. There were eight altogether, including the two with _Capitana_ Flores. However, what set her apart from the other three was the quality of the _fotos_ of the other _fotos_ she was in. Everyone looked like professional _fotos_ of performances.

 

Rosa’s mind was racing as she wrote up the details on the back of the photographs.

 

_A pair of twins -one of whom was a police officer, maybe? A Capitana and a dancer. And a man with a gold tooth. Who were they? Were they vampires? How come they were immortal? Maybe they were a family, like me..?_

 

_How had no one uncovered this? Was it all a conspiracy like skin creams?_

 

She then carefully pulled the photos out of their sleeves and copied them. She then carefully put the photographs away in the correct boxes. She then put the boxes away then left. 

 

\----

 

Rosa could tell that _Abuelita_ was not happy about both her _and Miguel_ following her to _Señora_ Cortez's house. However, she hadn't complained as much as Rosa had expected. She had simply sighed and told them to be good. Rosa was confused and had glanced over at Miguel at that, who had stared blankly ahead.

 

 _Señora_ Cortez's house was not far from theirs as she lived near the library where she worked. As far as Rosa knew, _Señora_ Cortez had been the librarian since she was her age. Her Mama and her _Abuela_ before that had been the town clerks, and it was her Mama- _Señora_ Gabriella- who had started the library. It at least made sense why Mateo liked books: books and reading was just as much in his blood as shoes and crafting shoes were in hers. 

 

The Cortez house was much smaller than theirs. It was also not as in good repair as theirs- There was a crack in an upstairs window and the paint on the top of the walls were cracked and peeling. The door, which had recently been repainted, had dents in it that looked like they had been their for decades. However, the building was clean and despite the damage looked incredibly neat. Also despite being very small, Mateo’s house had two storeys. Rosa had always known that Mateo’s family was not as well off as her own, not that they were particularly wealthy themselves, but their outside walls were all painted. 

 

 _Abuelita_ knocked on the door, and a moment later _Señora_ Cortez answered the door. She was as small as _Abuelita_ with short thick curly greying hair and thick spectacles which she kept on a chain around her neck. She also always wore a very nice pair of pearl earrings - which seemed out of place in Santa Cecilia. 

 

 _Señora_ Cortez looked down at them, before putting on her glasses. Rosa then saw the resemblance with her nieto. She looked at _Abuelita_ , Miguel and then her.

 

 “Hola, Elena. Aye, _Miguelito_ ! _Matiteo_ said that you were coming to do science with him. And…” _Señora_ Cortez gasped, before breaking into a huge smile. “ _Rosita_? You’ve come too!”

 

“ _Hola Catarina!” Abuelita_ said, smiling tiredly. “Is your nieto in?”

 

“Sí, he is. Mateo, _mijo_ , your friends are here!” Catarina yelled over her shoulder in an authoritative voice. She then turned back to them and smiled and said sweetly. “In the meantime come on it. Elena, I will put on the kettle and we can chat while we wait for Yanina and Teresa. Jorge has just finished putting _Mi Mamá_ to sleep. _Chamacos_ , I think Mateo is making pizza for you, _¿Sí?”_  

 

Catarina stepped to aside, and they walked in. The hall was narrow, but not dark. There was a window above the door that let in light and the top of the stairs had an overhead light bulb. Also light spilled in from the kitchen and dining room. 

 

“ _Sí,”_ Rosa and Miguel said in unison. 

 

“Children today and their Americanisms,” Abuelita grumbled at Catarina.

 

Catarina nodded, “I cannot get Mateo off his phone. He is so bad. He says he is reading, but really he is just being impolite.”

 

Just then Mateo appeared. He was wearing his usual teal hoodie and baggy jeans. He was playing with his thumb again. He looked horribly tense, as though expecting something bad. However, his whole face lit up when he saw Miguel and her, and it was possibly the happiest Rosa had ever seen him. He even seemed to stand up straighter. He even smiled slightly, and he seemed slightly lighter than he usually did. 

 

Abuelita then turned to Miguel and Rosa and said. “Make sure you finish your work, _mijos_. And Miguel?”

 

“¿ _Sí?”_

 

“No Music,”  Abuelita said. 

 

Miguel looked bewildered, and looked at Rosa as Abuelita passed them and went into the dining room.

 

“Why is it me?” Miguel asked her. Rosa simply raised an eyebrow, while Mateo rubbed his eyes under his glasses.

 

“Come on, we’ll get some drinks and put the pizza in the oven, then I’ll take you up to my room,” Mateo said. He then turned and asked Miguel, “You did actually bring you _ciencia_ work this time, right Miguel?”

 

“ _¡Sí!”_ Miguel said, looking annoyed.

 

“I told him he had to,” Rosa added. Mateo looked at her and smirked.

 

They went through the house until they were in a small but very clean kitchen. In the corner of the room was a black stove cooker. The room was very outdated, with two very noticeable exceptions- a chrome sink and a fridge freezer shoved in the corner of the room/ Mateo grabbed some soda for them from a cupboard and filled up mismatching glasses for them. He then distributed them between the three of them and led them back out of the kitchen back to the tiny hallway and up the stairs. 

 

On the stairs, Rosa saw _fotos_ of Mateo’s family. At the bottom of the stairs there was a _foto_ of a pair of toddlers with the same short thick curly hair playing in Mariachi Plaza. One toddler was wearing cream overalls and a blue tshirt and the other was wearing a green sundress. Otherwise they were identical. 

 

The next _foto_ was of Mateo when he was about six years old. He was missing his two lower teeth and grinning at the camera. In his hand was a blue ribbon for what Rosa thought might be singing. His hair was curly and wild in the _foto_. There was something about the grinning six year old that the teen walking ahead of her seemed to be missing. She realised that there was something actually happy and carefree about the six year old whereas the fourteen year old always seemed almost too uncomfortable. 

 

Next to that was an old wedding _foto_ . With some squinting, Rosa realised it was _Señor y Señora_ Cortez’s wedding. Of course standing next to her daughter was _Señora_ Cortez’s mother who was still alive just a few years younger than _Mamá_ Coco, but was often more physically sick. Then next to her was her Mama. _Señora Cortez’s Abuelita_ was smiling looking at her granddaughter and daughter. She was much skinnier than both of them, and looked happy but tired.

 

The final _foto_ was a man in army clothing, and a family. He was smiling happily at the camera, and looked very proud. She could see small tufts of thick unruly hair sticking out from under his hat. Next to him was a man and a woman. The army man had his arm around the woman’s shoulders, and she had her arms around his shoulders. She was grinning at the camera her thick curly ringlets framing her face. Then in front of the woman was a small Mateo. He was looking up at the army man grinning at him. The other man in the _foto_ , who was wearing a suit, had his hand on Mateo’s shoulder, while the woman had her free hand on Mateo’s other shoulder.

 

“My _Tío_ Stefano and my parents,” Mateo said making Rosa jump. She looked at him. He swallowed looking at the _foto_ . “That was his last _foto,_ before he was stationed on the _ARM Morelia_. Two weeks after that foto was taken the ship he was serving on was attacked and sunk. By the time the Navy knew, there was no point looking for survivors. He was twenty-seven.”

 

“Mateo, I’m sorry…” Rosa said.

 

“ _No es nada,” Mateo_ said, before swallowed again. After a brief pause, he shook his head and he smiled sadly at her, and nodded towards an ajar door. “I was six. We were just very close.”

 

Rosa hurried after him, feeling uncomfortable.

 

Mateo’s room was tiny, and very cluttered. It was admittedly clean bar the desk, but almost in every corner there were piles upon piles of books everywhere. On the wall above the bed there was what looked like home-made poster for the periodic table, with the new elements penciled in at the bottom. On his bedside table there was a _foto_ of his parents and a glasses holder shaped like a stag perched on a pile of six books. Mateo’s bed was pushed against a wall, with pillows against said wall, so that it looked like he had a sofa. On a chest of draws that doubled a bit as a dresser was tiny speaker. Almost every piece of furniture in the room looked second hand or like it had been made decades ago. The only new thing in the room was a fold out poster of a model X Tesla engine. And then when she closed the door she saw on the back was his school uniform and a backpack. 

 

The desk was almost offensively messy. Mateo’s desk had school work on it, mixed with what she suspected was his research notes. There was a mug, precariously perched on the edge. Next to which was an ancient laptop propped up on top of several books. Poking out of the waves of paper and books was a desk lamp and ruler sticking out from what Rosa suspected was a drowned pencil pot. 

 

“Um, Rosa do you mind if I help Miguel with his work and then once we’re done, and then once we’ve eaten, we can get to the cool stuff?” Mateo asked, playing with his hand.

 

Rosa shrugged, “I brought my own work.” 

 

“Ooh what?” Mateo asked. 

 

“A report Madero,” Rosa said. 

 

“Oh, I have a book on him,” Mateo said eyes lighting up. “Uh… It’s there! Um... Abuelita gives me all the books which are too damaged or the library doesn’t want anymore. It helps that I will read just about anything.”

 

For the next hour, Rosa drowned out the boys quiet discussion about chemical equations in favour of her own work. They had taken over the bed, while she had made a desk of sorts out of several piles of Mateo’s books. She helped Mateo bring up the plates of pizza too when they were cooked. Making sure this time not to look at the _fotos_ on the wall. 

 

About an hour later Miguel yawned loudly and declared to Rosa that he was done with his work. She joined the boys on the bed and Miguel moved up. Mateo grabbed a stack of notes from his desk and lay them in front of them. Rosa pulled out her photocopies and notes. Miguel brought out his phone. 

 

“Ok, so I found these in the library,” Rosa said, showing them the photocopies. The two boys looked at the picture in surprise, and noticed her list of names and the report on Capitana Florez and two reviews of Ana Nieves’ shows. She had even found a report from a town a few hundred miles from Guadalajara which mentioned a young woman (first name missing) Nieves being rescued from a fire by a shadowed hero. The two boys glanced at each other in bewilderment.

 

“There’s more,” Miguel said softly.

 

“This tracks with what I found,” Mateo agreed. He then paused at the _foto_ of Chief Officer Jonatan Pinos. “I know him. I have seen him come into the library a few times. He’s nice.”

 

“Huh, I think I know him too. He came to the shop one morning very stressed... Size 28.5 feet - black. Slight heel to support war injury. Boots functional - but must always be able to be polished. He also always buys a size 28 -also black, but slacks not boots. Soft leather,” Miguel said like he was remembering a grocery shopping list.

 

“You remember that?” Rosa said surprised. 

 

“I remembered it because he was stressed, and holding a black umbrella, and ‘had to come across the river, because the others were out of soft leather’. I think his brother might be ill or something…?” Miguel shrugged.

 

Mateo looked at Rosa thoroughly frustrated and confused. He mouthed, “Why…?”

 

Rosa shrugged, honestly shocked Miguel had actually remembered something shoes related. She then furrowed her brows, “Umbrella…?”

 

The two boys jerked in surprise and glanced at each other then her. 

 

“He hid in the shadows,” Miguel murmured.

 

“Vampire…” Mateo trailed off. 

 

“What did you find Mateo?” Miguel asked, grabbing his elbow.

 

There was an anxious excitement in the room which had not been there previously. It was electric and cold. 

 

Mateo seemed to have fallen into a world of his own, but with a jolt he shook himself out of it. “Oh, Yeah. So I started with a broad search. Which yielded a lot of… well to put it bluntly- crap. You know: ‘Is Anne Hathaway a vampire? Is Reese Witherspoon? Is Gael García Bernal? Is Dracula real?’. So then I focused more on South America - which was interesting because I came across a load of legends. Did you know Argentina they believe the president must  become the godfather of the seventh born son, or the child could turn into a wolfman - or a foxman? It’s called a _Luison_ , or _Lobo-_ No _Lobizon_. Honestly the myth had discrepancies.”

 

“If I see any seventh sons I will tell you,” Miguel said. “Especially if I see them howling at the moon.”

 

“Did you look for anything on vampires?” Rosa asked concerned.

 

“Uh.. Yeah. It- just broad search and it was an interesting read. Not actually relevant or useful information to any of us really. Anyway, back here in Mexico we of course have _La Llorona_ and _Tlahuelpuchi_ ,” Mateo saw their confused faces. “A _Tlahuelpuchi_ is a teen who drinks the blood and sometimes kills kids.”

 

“Delightful,” Rosa said dryly. 

 

 _“El Chupacarbe_ also has some links to vampire mythos too. The myth is very similar to that of a dog in Spain, called a _Dip_ , which was bitten by a vampire. _Brujas_ , which can also shapeshift. There’s also a man-bat? The Aztecs also believed in _Chaneques_ which stole your soul, while adults today use _El CuyCuy_ or _El Coco_ to make kids believe they will steal their souls,” Mateo said glancing up from his notes. He then noticed the other two looking at him, eyebrows raised. “I am not implying your _Mamá_ Coco is a vampire.”

 

“Good,” Miguel said firmly.

 

“Um, basically, vampire thing in Mexico have been happening for a long time. Just because we call them different things, the same traits are there- shape shifting, murder, blood-sucking, soul stealing. If vampires are real, their old. And just very good at hiding,” Mateo glanced at the _fotos._ “Or so we thought. There was also another one, but that… That one ends up being tied to music and… a singer who I don’t like.”

 

“De la Cruz?” Miguel asked, head shooting up

 

“...Yeah,” Mateo sighed, and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. He then readjusted his glasses before continuing in a flat voice. _“El Sombrerón_ . He is a mariachi who appears at dusk and plays a _‘silver’_ guitar, and likes to plait girls' hair. After he plays and plaits their hair they can no longer eat or sleep… Also there is a reference to holy water. However, everyone at their mother has some reference to this myth and de la Cruz.”

 

“de la Cruz never plaited anyones hair,” Miguel said brow furrowing. Rosa glanced at him suspiciously. 

 

Mateo meanwhile sighed, looking like he was waiting for the floor to open up under him.

 

“Actually, if de la Cruz is a vampire, there are lots of eyewitness accounts of people seeing him in _Ciudad_ and Santa Cec-” Migue began.

 

“De la Cruz is dead Miguel,” Mateo said bluntly. He rolled his eyes, “don’t believe conspiracy theories.”

 

Rosa looked at Mateo, and asked. “Is it anymore a conspiracy theory than _...El Coco_?”

 

Mateo sighed and fell back on his bed. He put his hands to his temples and groaned, “No, I guess not. Go on Miguel what did you find?”

 

“Well like you I came across a lot of conspiracy theories, and eye witness accounts. Like you I dismissed a lot of them, like people claiming to see Frida Kahlo in _Ciudad_ or Ernesto de la Cruz in Santa Cecilia,” Miguel explained.

 

“Thank god,” Mateo groaned from the bed.

 

“Well I did a search on men with gold teeth… and after a lot of weird unrelated search results, weirdly the only reference I found that mattered was an eyewitness account from a Spanish-speaking _Americano_ Priest who tried to shut down one of de la Cruz’s parties. He mentions that he saw a man who fits our man’s description. He saw him, quote, ‘committing abhorrent sins spilling the blood of God from Man’. The Priest was then thrown out of the party,” Miguel summarised.

 

“So some Priest saw someone who looks like Gold-tooth drink blood while at a party. Do you have anymore on that Priest?” Rosa asked. 

 

Miguel shook his head.

 

“Hmm. Nothing screams vampire more than drinking blood,” Mateoo pointed out, sitting up. “Did you go back to the photoseller by the way?”

 

“Yes!” Miguel said. “Yeah I did! Um… He said that he got the 1995 one from the school. There was a town society project and that was one of the runners up. He then showed me others, and explained that those students had gone around taking _fotos_ of people around town. The ‘26 one was donated from the museum two years prior. As for the dancing one, he can’t remember who gave it to him.”

 

“Different sources? Unless it is all a ruse, it seems like these really are legitimate _fotografías,_ ” Mateo said.

 

“Yep,” Miguel said.

 

Rosa chewed her lip and looked away. Miguel noticed that she looked tired still. He was about to ask her about it, when she turned and looked at them, “Where do we go from here?” 

 

There was a pause, before Mateo and Miguel answered at the same time:

 

“Investigate more about that priest. Find out how credible a source he is.”

 

“Go to _El Barrio Viejo_.”

 

“Mateo, that’s sensible. Also maybe you should also keep an eye out for the Pinos brothers, if they ever come to the library,” Rosa sai before turning to Miguel. “I like your idea, but I think we need to know a bit more before we go over there.”

 

“But, why are we scared of _El Barrio Viejo?”_ Miguel asked.

 

“The crime,” Rosa and Mateo said together.

 

“But what crime?” Miguel asked. “Have you ever seen police cars over there? Have you ever seen any sign of life there? -During the day I mean? Why are we all scared of the other side of the river, but don’t really know why?”

 

“He has a point you know,” Mateo said. “I have never heard a single siren from the otherside of the river.”

 

“Because it’s where the vampires are,” Rosa said quietly. She then rubbed her haead, before looking up and yelling, “FUCK!”

 

“Hey _Abuelita_ doesn’t like swears,” Mateo said. 

 

They sat there in silence for a minute. 

 

“So what do we do?” Miguel asked.

 

“I think we need more information before we enter _El Barrio Viejo,_ ” Rosa said, sighing. She then looked at her _primo,_ “Miguel I think it’s a good idea, but we-”

 

“-Need more information,” Mateo finished. “A lot more.”

 

The rest of the night they tried to come up with more plans but eventually they settled with what they had. It was very close to midnight when _Abuelita_ called Rosa and Miguel down. Rosa confirmed cheerfully that they had worked all night. Mateo was quiet while they packed up and said their goodbyes. 

 

\--

The next day was painfully hot. The heat was suffocating. The sun prickled and cracked at their skin. It felt as though the sun was attempting to extract all the moisture from their bodies and fry them alive. Due to this, they felt as though every single piece of grit and sand that stuck them. Everyone was sticky and gross, like they were covered in super glue.

 

As this was the case only the adults, and Abel, were working in the workshop that afternoon. Rosa was sitting in the television room, and doing work while her brothers watch cartoons. Miguel sat in _Mamá_ Coco’s room and got on with some maths problems while she dosed. Even in this usually cool room, he felt the heat. 

 

Miguel was debating the merits of having a sly break. He felt like sleeping, it felt too hot to think about mathematics in this heat. Also _Mamá_ Coco wouldn’t mind, she was asleep. 

 

He heard a buzz outside as a client appeared at the gate, and _Abuelita_ getting up to go talk to them.

 

He watched idly as a fly flew in through the crack in the door and buzzed around the room, flying around him and _Mamá_ Coco. It then flew up to _Mamá_ Coco’s window and began to try to fly out, only succeeding on banging its head on the window. He watched it try in frustration and get out in vain. 

 

Miguel briefly imagined the rhythmic tap-tap-tap on the window was the beat of a bass drum starting to play. He mentally started to compose a piece to accompany the bass drum, which included a saxophone and piano. 

 

Just as the piano was starting to change the song’s fictional tempo, Miguel decided he was being cruel and got up. He caught the fly in a cup with a piece of paper, and walked towards the door. 

 

He opened the door, and let the fly out. As it flew away, he saw that _Abuelita_ and she did not look happy. He peered around the gate as much as he could from where he was standing. Then with a wince he recognised Mateo’s hoodie.

 

 _What was he doing? The idiota!_ Miguel thought.

 

As he approached he saw Miguel expression and saw that he looked like he was standing in front of _Abuelita_. He wasn’t moving, and had a look of pure terror on his face. He was frozen in place except he was twisting his hands around. 

 

“ _Abuelita_ ! Mateo! What a _delightful_ surprise!” Mateo said, raising his eyebrows at Mateo .

 

“Miguel go inside. I was explaining to _Señor_ Cortez that he should go home to Catarina,” _Abuelita_ said pointedly.

 

“It’s ok _Abuelita_ , I am pretty sure it is ok if Mateo only wants to talk very quickly,” Miguel said.

 

“Sì,” Mateo said finding his voice. “I just want to talk to Miguel, or Rosa, very fast.”

 

“No, You are going back to Catarina-”

 

“ _Abuelita_ , I just put _mi hermanos_ to sleep, why are you…? Mateo…?” Rosa said as she walked up to them and fell in besides Miguel.

 

“You too, Rosa,” _Abuelita_ said, looking down at Rosa who looked nervous. “And Miguel! What have I told you about spending time with that boy!?”

 

“ _Ab- Abuelita_ , he just wants to tell us something-”

 

“He’s a _musico_! He plays piano!”

 

“He prefers science and mechanics,” Rosa said

 

Miguel saw Mateo sigh at that and look very unhappy.

 

“No, no, it was probably he was telling me something about-”

 

“No! No, that boy is not teaching you music.”

 

“He doesn’t even like music. Stop assuming that everyone who plays music only likes music!” Miguel shouted. He felt as though his outcry had sent a shockwave through the courtyard.

 

 _Abuelita_ stopped her tirade taken aback. Rosa turned to look at him albeit looking impressed and a little suspicious. The workshop ground to a halt. There was a tense mutter, before he heard some people get it up to take a look. Mateo stared at him shocked, before putting his head in his hands.

 

The silence stung like someone had cracked a whip. It was too quiet and was almost deafening, like there was a blanket over his head. No one spoke. All Miguel could hear was the beat of his own terrified heart. 

 

His family gathered from the workshop to see what the commotion was about, and Miguel desperately wanted to hide. There were too many confused eyes on him, and _Abuelita_ looked a cross between shocked and still ready to start yelling like a bull. 

 

“ _Mamá_ what’s going on?” _Papá_ asked. 

 

“Oh, I thought he was a _musico_ ?” _Abuelita_ said recovering from her surprise. 

 

“No, No,” Miguel said.

 

“I prefers science,” Mateo said looking at her. “I am just go- good enough apparently for piano, that _mi Abuelita_ makes me try for music qualifications to… look good on my college report.”

 

While he spoke Mateo rung his hands out, and looked at _Abuelita_ shaking. 

 

“But Catarina says that you sing in the choir,” Abuelita spluttered.

 

“That’s because it looks go-”

 

“ _Mamá_ what’s going on?” Papá repeated. 

 

“Catarina’s _nieto_ wanted to talk to Miguel, and he plays music,” Abuelita explained.

 

“For college credit?!” Rosa protested.

 

“Catarina Cortez? As in Alma _y_ Stefano’s _Mamá_?” Mamá said suddenly, looking at Mateo, although she was seeing someone else.

 

 _“Sí,”_ Mateo said nervously. 

 

“That means…” Mamá gasped and then smiled, “You’re Mateo?” 

 

“Sí,” Mateo said, nervously. 

 

“I knew your _Mamá y Tìo_ when I was in _escuela_. They were… interesting,” Mamá said smiling to herself.

 

Mateo looked like he wanted to ask more, but stopped himself, and swallowed tightly.

 

“ _Mamá_ , I think this boy is fairly harmless. At the least Rosa likes him, and she is sensible, so he can stay for the afternoon, _Sí?” Papá_ said, putting a gentle hand on his mother's arm. 

 

“Fine, but if I hear so much a whistle from you, you’ll be out,” _Abuelita_ said, pointing a finger at Mateo, who nodded vigorously. 

 

Slowly, the adults dispersed. The last to leave being _Mamá_ who had a quiet talk with Mateo before leaving. 

 

Rosa and Miguel stood off to the side and waited for their friend. Miguel noticed that Rosa looked tired. Incredibly, tired like she had not slept in a few days. 

 

“How’s your throat?” Rosa asked after a minute. 

 

Miguel looked at her confused, “What do you mean?” 

 

Rosa looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “You were very loud.”

 

“Was I?”

 

“Sí, so I was wondering if your throat hurt?”

 

Miguel touched his adams apple. His throat felt… fine. He told Rosa, who glanced at the floor, before shrugging. They were quiet for a moment, before Mateo slinked over to them. 

 

“Has anyone ever told you that you are a fantastic decision maker?” Rosa told him.

 

“No…” Mateo said looking nervous.

 

“ _Abuelita_ nearly flayed you,” Rosa said. 

 

“What was so important that you felt the need to incur the wrath of _Abuelita_?” Miguel said, curious.

 

Mateo grew serious, “I found the priest. Who is again another mystery?”

 

The Rivera _primos_ looked at each other, both surprised and excited. They then each grabbed one of Mateo’s arms and dragged him away from the rest of the family. Miguel opened Coco’s door and they went inside. Mateo had to stoop to enter. His confusion softened into pity, then screwed back into confusion again upon seeing Coco. 

 

“Won’t she hear us?” He asked. 

 

“No,” Miguel assured him.

 

“A thunderstorm could happen right now, and Coco would sleep through it,” Rosa added.

 

Miguel sat down where he had been before. Rosa sat on the bed against the wall, and signalled for Mateo to join her he did. Albeit taking a lot more care. 

 

“So priest?” Rosa said firmly.

 

“Sí,” Mateo pulled out a notebook from his jacket pocket. “ _Padre_ John Johnson, born in El Paso at the turn of the century. He seems to have left home at eighteen, and about a few months later joined the Catholic church. Rose up the ranks. Actually, looked like he was one of those annoying _gringos_ who used to come to towns like ours and claim we needed to learn English, and that we worshipped the devil. Anyway he wasn’t very popular with the locals, having been chased out of town once with dogs.. He was twenty-five when he wrote that article in 1925. He seemed to love and hate de la Cruz, very mixed responses to him. He would call him a scourge upon mankind, while also commenting on his… ew.. _Seductive devlish jawline… and forearms that could cast a man in hell. Gross._

 

“He slowly climbed up the Cathollic church ladder and stopped interacting so much with Mexico. However, on the 2nd April 1942 he just vanishes? His house maid turned up at his house to find the place a mess… It actually get quite dark with some of the stuff they found, but yeah the gist of it…? It looks like he was murdered…? Or at the very least he vanished. The police looked for a bit, but find nothing. The only thing that the police found was _Padre_ Johnson’s crucifix at the bottom of a well a few days later.”

 

Mateo leaned back against the wall, and rubbed his chin. He looked at Miguel to Rosa. 

 

“The murder-missing person thing could be unrelated,” Rosa said thoughfully. She then grimaced. “I mean it’s not… unusual.” 

 

“That was my thought, but I thought I would bring it up anyway..?” Mateo asked. 

 

“Or it could be connected,” Miguel said. The other two looked at him curious, “He was the one who found the weird de la Cruz thing? Maybe, a vampire got vengeance-y and got the priest. Also that’s no long after de la-”

 

Miguel was suddenly silenced by Rosa putting her hand over his mouth, and hissed “Stop. Saying. His. Name. Do you want _Abuelita_ to kick Mateo out?”

 

“Also Miguel,” Mateo said looking irritated. “Can you please STOP looking for a way de la Cruz could be alive? It’s weird.”

 

Miguel wriggled away from Rosa, and argued quietly, “It’s still a possibility.”

 

“A very slim possibility!” Mateo said angrily. 

 

“Boys!” Rosa said. They looked at her. She put her fingers to her temple for a minute, before taking them away and looking at them both. “It doesn’t matter if he is or not? We can ask that question once we know vampires are real.”

 

“We need hard proof,” Mateo said.

 

“Yeah,” the primos agreed. 

 

They then devolved back into talking about plans on how to get said proof. Slowly, the conversation changed to books and shoemaking. After that it became a general conversation. Mateo and Rosa found that they both had read the same book series, and had a long discussion about the portrayal of slavery and psychological abuse in the story - Miguel listened with interest. 

 

They talked for so long that Miguel’s _Mamá_ came in with lemonades for them at some point, and to give Coco her medicine. The shadows grew across the room, and the room was illuminated by the golden twilight. Rosa sat closest to the window, and thus had the dying sun hitting her entire body. The two boys who were sitting side by side further up the bed had the upper half of their bodies cast in shadow, while their legs soaked in the dregs of the sun. When she had visited Luisa had pulled Coco out of the sun, and she slept in the shade of the darkening room.

 

Mateo stayed so late, _Abuelita_ asked would he like to stay for supper. Mateo looked at Miguel, before nodding nervously. After this, _Abuelita_ turned to her _nietos_ , and told them they needed to help set up. They agreed, although Miguel was more reluctant that Rosa. In the kitchen _Abuelita_ called _Señora_ Cortez to tell her where Mateo was. 

 

While Miguel brought out food and plates, he saw Mateo looking at a piece of machinery in the workshop. Berto came over and asked him something. Mateo asked a question back, and Berto nodded impressed. After that the two talked animatedly, swapping notes. 

 

Dinner was an animated affair. Miguel noticed that Mateo eat less than he did, much to the concern of _Abuelita_. Mateo shrugged and commented that he had had a big breakfast. The Riveras thoroughly questioned Mateo as he was the mystery at the table. Berto was genuinely surprised when Mateo told him his age. Berto looked from Rosa to Mateo and questioned why Mateo wasn’t in the year above her. Mateo swallowed, and shrugged, and said that he’d had to take a year out as a child. A lot of Riveras were impressed with Mateo’s technical knowledge and even Rosa listened animatedly during the conversations about mechanical shoe polishers. Mateo simply shrugged at the end and commented that he liked mechanics and had read a book on shoe polishers in the summer. 

 

Miguel noticed, however, The Riveras weren’t the only ones with curious eyes. Mateo was observing them in wonderment. Several times he even gave little smiles at small family interactions like the twins fussing or _Abuelita_ telling Miguel to eat his food. Only halfway through the meal did Miguel understand why: Mateo didn’t have this back home. His family was tiny, so to him their giant sprawling messy family must be fascinating and a curiosity to him. 

 

Mateo finally endeared himself to _Abuelita_ by insisting helping clean up. She therefore deemed him a good boy and told him he could visit again. Mateo grinned the first time that day, and promised that he would. He quietly told Miguel after food that The Riveras were amazing and the way they just all seemed to be loud yet warm all the time was beautiful. 

 

Miguel was saying goodbye to Mateo at the gate, when Mateo turned back and reached out and grabbed Miguel’s wrist. Miguel looked at him eyebrow raised. Mateo glanced around, before pulling him into a hug.

 

“Please Miguel, don’t do anything stupid. Don’t go to _El Barrio Viejo_ , and stop looking for dead celebrities,” Mateo begged in his ear. He then pulled away and Miguel saw the terror in his eyes.

 

1The Posey is a fictional celebration I made up that happens in Santa Cecilia. It happens at midnight on New Years Eve in Mariachi Plaza. A couple which married the year previously dances to Auld Lang Syne in the middle of the crowd while their family dances around them in the town. Is it relevant to the story, no not really. Did I make this up because I love Auld Lang Syne… it’s more likely than you think. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mateo is an anxious fellow isn't he? Let's hope Miguel heeds his words. Also more vampires...? Who are they? 
> 
> In other news, SO yes. I am back. For good. Hopefully. 
> 
> As it says above this chapter I am gifting this chapter emotionally to Elletoria and Calliope. Calliope has as always been a great advocate that I get back to writing this AU, and has emotionally supported me for the last nine months which has meant a lot to me.
> 
> Elletoria, seeing your art gave me the push to put this chapter up today. Thank you. Your art is gorgeous and I love it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! As I said this has been a labour of love for me, and I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> My Beta is Calliopes_Quill. Please read her fic: [A Year in a Life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14065137/chapters/32408727%22). I promise you won’t be disappointed, it’s really good! 
> 
> I will be here next Wednesday with a new installment. 
> 
> In the interim I am Perlog Annwyl, and the same on Tumblr, twitter and discord. I will happily talk about the fic. 
> 
> Hey people did fanart of the fic! It's awesome! To check it out see below:   
> [ _Elletoria's fan art for this fic_ [Prologue, 1 and 2]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17459009/chapters/41136668).


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